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Cardinals boss defends decison not to make ball-tampering claim
2006-10-24
St. Louis manager Tony La Russa defended his decision not to make ball-tampering claims against Detroit pitcher Kenny Rogers, but the stain upon the World Series will not wipe away so easily. Television cameras spotted a smudge on the left palm of 41-year-old southpaw Rogers in the first inning of Sunday's 3-1 Detroit victory that levelled the 102nd edition of Major League Baseball best-of-seven final at one win each. Rogers claimed the stain was dirt rather than pine tar, a grip enhancer used to help with precision, but La Russa said he had seen a similar stain in the same place on Rogers' hand in videotapes of prior playoff games. "I don't believe it was dirt. It didn't look like dirt," La Russa said. "I had an idea what it looked like from having seen it before in (tapes of) other games." Cardinals batters complained to La Russa but he asked umpires only to have Rogers clean his hands rather than investigate if he was cheating by doctoring the ball with a foreign substance, which would mean ejection and a 10-game ban. "That's not the way I want to win," La Russa said. "I decided I was not going to be part of BS where I was going to ask the umpire to go to the mound and undress the pitcher. I alerted him. I said, 'I hope it gets fixed. If it doesn't I'll take the next step.'" Rogers wiped his hands clean and silenced St. Louis batters, allowing only two hits in eight innings with one of those coming before he cleaned his hands. "We got it fixed and we still couldn't beat him," La Russa said. "I did what I thought was right. If he didn't get rid of it, I would have challenged it. It got fixed in my opinion and we never hit the guy. "I made that call myself. If somebody handles it differently, that's what makes this country great. When the competition is over, you want to have no regrets. I don't have any regrets for the way I handled it last night." Rogers, who became the oldest starter to win a World Series game, stuck by his story that the smudge was only dirt, which is allowed. "I don't like throwing a new baseball. I like some dirt, resin and spit on it so I can feel it," Rogers said. "I didn't do anything inappropriate. I wiped the mud off and the last seven innings were really good, but I'm sure that will get lost in the translation." Now there is a stain on the image of Rogers, who before 2006 had the worst earned-run average in baseball playoff history but this year has hurled 23 consecutive scoreless playoff innings - a feat last achieved in 1905. "There's a line that defines the competition. You can step over the line 'cause we're all trying to walk the edge," La Russa said. "Just because there's a little something they use to get a better grip, to me that doesn't cross the line. I do think it's a little bit a part of the game at times." La Russa had to defend that personal code of competition Monday to players, some of whom thought he should have pushed harder to get Rogers ejected. "Anybody that felt like I should do that, I disappointed you," La Russa said. "But I can look at myself in the mirror and go to sleep at night." Cardinals outfielder Preston Wilson might have slept sounder if greater pressure had been put upon Rogers, Detroit's likely starter if a sixth game is needed. "Anybody out there doing something (wrong) should be searched," Wilson said. St. Louis slugger Scott Spiezio wanted a closer look as well. "I guess it would have been nice, if he did have pine tar," Spiezio said. "You have your suspicions, but who knows? I don't think it affected us. He's the one who has to worry about that, not us. I hope they fix it the next time." La Russa said he did not think allowing Rogers to escape without extra scrutiny was a disservice to his team. "I do have a responsibility to not get abused," La Russa said. "If somebody abuses us, you take the step. After the initial thing, I don't think we got abused. I think we just got beat. "I do believe part of the competition is somebody will try to take advantage of you, intimidate you... If somebody spanks us, we spank back." La Russa also dismissed the idea that his personal friendship with Tigers manager Jim Leyland played any role in his choice not to press a point that was an embarrassment for Leyland and humiliation for Major League Baseball. "In 20 plus years of being a manager, that's how I have handled every one of those controversies against whoever was the manager," La Russa said. "It had nothing to do with Leyland. We're friends. It had nothing to do with friends." js06
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