Talk about drumming up drama where there is none.
In what might have easily erupted into a full-blown baseball scandal, a shiny substance that may have been anything from sunscreen to sweat was pictured on Houston Astros right-hander Mike Fiers' glove during his historic performance against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday night.
Fiers' no-hitter was the 11th in Astros franchise history and the first since 1973 to be thrown by a guy who had been traded in the same season. It was also the first complete game of his career and easily his greatest performance in the major leagues.
But as it's known to do from time to time, Twitter turned a great event into a potential disgrace when people started tweeting screenshots of the inside of Fiers' glove, which had some sort of shiny substance on the upper thumb. Cries of cheating followed, attempting to drown Fiers' shining moment as a professional.
Did Fiers pitch a no hitter with pine tar on his glove ? pic.twitter.com/liVUGBZpuu
— Baseball Serious (@BaseballSerious) August 22, 2015
"Last night was about Mike Fiers being a really good major league pitcher, and he had a great accomplishment," Astros manager A.J. Hinch told reporters Saturday. "Anything that takes away from that is unfortunate, unless there's this massive proof."
There was not. The proof was weak at best, and all the pictures did was mildly take away from Fiers' 134-pitch performance that featured a devastating curveball, aided by a foreign substance or not:
.@Fiers64 rode his devastating hook to no-hit glory. #DomiNoNO pic.twitter.com/dxbTueHhyT
— MLB GIFS (@MLBGIFs) August 22, 2015
Because of the pictures, Fiers was faced with questions about what exactly was on his glove. He rightfully brushed off the inquiries, ones he shouldn't have to answer, though the reporters confronting him were forced into the situation by the shots on the Internet.
"I mean, you can try to pick out a lot of things through a lot of games," Fiers told reporters Saturday. "I don't know what they are talking about. It could be a different lighting or camera angle or a lot of things. I don't know."
Neither did anyone watching at home, which made the tweets reek of hate. They were attempts to knock down a guy who had just reached a personal pedestal.
Thankfully, the Dodgers did not take part in that. Approached with the topic on Saturday, the Dodgers players did not say they believed Fiers cheated. They claimed making that implication would take away from Fiers' performance. And they were right. The proof did not exist to do so, and it certainly would have cast darkness on the most outstanding night of Fiers' career.
“I don’t want to take anything away from his night,” Dodgers left fielder Carl Crawford told reporters.
Crawford did add that pitchers using substances on the ball was commonplace in the major league. According to him, it is basically one of the game’s accepted illegal practices.
"I know when I was back in Tampa, I used to see pitchers putting stuff on balls all the time," Crawford told reporters. "I don't know how many guys around the league are doing it, but on my team, I used to see them doing stuff all the time, so I just figured it was normal. I'd just be like, 'Yo, I'm going to tell on you if I ever got to face you,' just joking around, but I just figure it's not that big of a deal.
"I don't know if it's an advantage. You still have to throw the ball over the plate, but at the same time, there's a reason why they do it and they know they're going to get in trouble for it and they still do it."
Even if the opposing team suspects a pitcher might be using a substance for grip purposes or any other reason, they are unlikely to bring it to an umpire’s attention unless the pitcher scoffs at common sense and makes the violation obvious. Had Fiers put anything on his glove Friday, it would have qualified as blatantly obvious because it was in plain sight, much the same way New York Yankees starter Michael Pineda used a substance last year, drawing himself a 10-game suspension.
But the Dodgers never noticed anything strange on Fiers' glove. Therefore there was no need to alert the game’s authorities.
“I think if you talk about stuff like that, it seems like you're whining," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly told reporters Saturday. "I think a lot of guys use it. It's kind of accepted unless it's just blatantly obvious that somebody's doing it. I had no idea during the game; nobody said anything to us."
And nobody should say anything about it again. Friday night belonged to Fiers, and believing anything different unfairly clouds one of the most memorable nights of his life to date.
All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.
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