CSI Anaheim: Pine tar, conspiracy and good ol' brouhaha
ANAHEIM, Calif. - The pine tar found on Los Angeles Angels reliever Brendan Donnelly's glove during Tuesday night's wild game was nothing compared to the goop the two managers, the Washington Nationals' Frank Robinson and the Angels' Mike Scioscia, tossed back and forth.
In a highly unusual and charged scene, both dugouts emptied and the bullpens cleared when the two managers became embroiled in a heated argument. They had to be separated by plate umpire Tim Tschida after Donnelly was ejected -- without having thrown a pitch -- in the seventh inning when Robinson asked the umps to check the reliever's glove.
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| Brendan Donnelly exits the field without his glove, which was confiscated. (AP) |
"I've known Mike Scioscia for quite awhile. ... I've always respected Mike as a person and as a player," Robinson said following his team's come-from-behind 6-3 win. "In the Arizona Fall League he showed a lot of good traits and he's done an outstanding job with the Angels.
"But the thing about it is, his guy got caught cheating tonight. He was way off base, and he took me by surprise. He told me he was going to have every one of my pitchers undressed. I took that as a threat. What that has to do with that situation ...
"I lost a lot of respect for Mike tonight as a person and as a manager. There's nothing he can say to me now. Nothing.
"If he apologizes, I will not accept it. I will not have anything to do with it."
Scioscia was incredulous when the comments were relayed to him.
"I'm not apologizing," he said.
Robinson also accused Donnelly of having sandpaper in his pitching hand as well as pine tar on his glove, though the umpires never got as far as the sandpaper. They ejected Donnelly as soon as they saw a "significant amount" -- according to crew chief Dale Scott -- of pine tar on the heel of the glove.
As for the sandpaper, Robinson theorized Donnelly got rid of it when the umpires were conferring.
"Did you see him leave the mound and walk around?" Robinson said. "He walked out toward second base. He probably gave it to (Adam) Kennedy to put in his pocket."
Upon hearing that, Scioscia was even more disbelieving.
"He had no sandpaper out there," he said. "That's absolutely ridiculous. He had no sandpaper.
"Are you kidding me? That's absolutely ridiculous. There was pine tar on the glove. That's what the umpires found. Pine tar does not affect the flight of the ball."
Donnelly, too, vehemently denied the sandpaper accusation.
"You know what? That's just a f------ lie, that's what that is," Donnelly said. "That's a ---damn lie."
Kennedy had showered and left the clubhouse before he could be reached for comment.
The entire thing appeared to start out of nowhere, which left the conspiracy theorists immediately fingering Nationals outfielder -- and former Angel -- Jose Guillen as the orchestrator.
Scioscia called for Donnelly to relieve rookie starter Ervin Santana with one out and a runner on first base in the seventh. Donnelly had barely reached the mound before Robinson asked the umpires to check his glove. He had not even had a chance to throw his first pitch to pinch-hitter Carlos Baerga.
As for exactly why Robinson pounced so quickly, the only thing that's certain here is this: There rarely is a dull moment when Guillen is on the field in Anaheim. Playing for the Angels a year ago, he angered many of his teammates and several others in the organization when he accused the pitching staff of failing to protect Anaheim hitters after a spate of hit-by-pitches and brushbacks.
The Angels suspended Guillen for the season last September when he fired a batting helmet in the direction of the manager when Scioscia sent in a pinch-runner for him. Anaheim traded him to Washington over the winter.
The most logical theory in the building -- and in front of a sellout crowd of 43,874 -- was that Guillen had tipped Robinson and the coaching staff off to some kind of deep, dark secret from inside the Angels clubhouse. Especially being that, since Donnelly had not pitched Monday night in the series opener, it wasn't as if Nationals hitters had first-hand evidence of scuffed balls moving in funny directions.
"That's not my business," Guillen said. "I don't say anything. I don't know where you got that from."
Robinson denied receiving any inside dope from Guillen, saying he does not make it a practice of quizzing players as to secrets from their old organizations, such as which signs they used for which plays.
Instead, Robinson said he moved because the Nationals picked something up from the videos they used for scouting in preparation for the series.
"You get a little curious when the ball is dipping and darting and ducking here and there," he said. "So you get up close in slow motion."
"I'd like to see that video," shot back Donnelly, who believes Guillen was the instigator.
Scioscia, too, found the video explanation difficult to believe.
"Pine tar does not alter the flight of the ball," he repeated.
Regardless, Rule 8.02(b) specifically prohibits foreign substances on gloves and, despite Donnelly's and the Angels' pleas that pitchers throughout the league use pine tar periodically so they can better grip the baseball -- particularly when they are sweating -- the umpires acted swiftly and correctly.
"There was definitely a foreign substance on the heel of the glove," Scott said. "It was definitely pine tar. It was obvious. There was quite a bit of it."
The umpires, while ejecting Donnelly, confiscated his glove and will be sending it to Major League Baseball officials this week. A suspension is expected for Donnelly, though that was the last thing on his mind at the end of a tumultuous night.
"I'm not even thinking about that right now," Donnelly said.
As if that wasn't enough entertainment for one evening, as Donnelly and Scioscia left the field of play following the incident in the seventh, Scioscia veered sharply to his left and confronted Robinson, who was standing in foul territory just off the first-base line.
It quickly became heated between the two managers. Scioscia later confirmed Robinson's accusation that he told the Washington manager he would "undress" the Nationals pitchers.
That's when the two skippers began shouting at each other -- "I was responding to him walking over to me," Robinson said. "I took it as a threat to me and to my ballclub." The umpires closed in and all hell broke loose. And as Robinson and Scioscia jawed, Guillen lost it and went absolutely bonkers.
He tried to get at Scioscia and, while three Washington coaches held him back and pulled him toward the dugout, he tried to get at Angels hitting coach Mickey Hatcher.
Robinson said Guillen told him that he was angered because he felt Scioscia was being disrespectful to Robinson -- an account confirmed by Guillen in the postgame clubhouse.
"All I know is I've got a lot of respect for Frank, and that's it," Guillen said. "That man really deserves respect."
Later, Guillen added: "We're talking about respect. You're looking at a 75-year-old-man (actually, Robinson is 69) against a 40-year-old (Scioscia is 46). Frank deserves more respect than that."
Guillen declined to give specifics about why he was going after Hatcher.
"I really don't care what he says," Guillen said. "I really don't care about those guys. I'm a Washington National now. I've got a job to do. I get paid a lot of money to do it. They've got their problems. We've got our problems. It's as simple as that."
And those problems could be multiplied for both sides once the commissioner's office is finished with the incident.
Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon and St. Louis manager Tony La Russa were each suspended for two games and fined in a similar incident last June in Pittsburgh. That one started when La Russa hollered at Pirates reliever Mike Gonzalez from the dugout following a brushback pitch -- and ended with an enraged McClendon calling La Russa out, La Russa answering and the two managers screaming at each other with only inches separating them before an umpire -- ironically enough, Dale Scott -- stepped in.
And Donnelly probably can expect some time off as well.
"I don't have anything to apologize for," he said. "I didn't even throw a pitch."
He added: "Pine tar is used the same way resin is used, the same way a lot of things are used in baseball. Late in the game, balls tend to get slick because they're not rubbed up. You go to the Midwest (where it's humid and players are sweating) ... people don't want us to hit people in the head."
No doubt, that will all be included in Donnelly's defense when baseball investigators come calling in the very near future.
