Major League Baseball will reexamine pine tar rule after the season

In Wednesday night’s start against the Red Sox, Yankees pitcher Michael Pineda was ejected in the second inning after he was caught with pine tar on his neck. Major League Baseball handed down a 10-game suspension the next day for the right-hander’s violation of the rules.

Pineda’s shame may only last through the season, however. In a report by the Associated Press, commissioner Bud Selig said that Major League Baseball “ought to look at all this” after the 2014 season concludes. While many have condemned Pineda, others have said he only did blatantly what scores of pitchers have been doing discreetly for decades.

MLB chief operating officer Rob Manfred offered a comment on the issue:

“I think the way that the rule has been enforced, as with lots of rules in baseball, is that when there’s a complaint, we do something about it,” MLB chief operating officer Rob Manfred said. “And that’s what happened here. I don’t think that this particular incident is all that different from other incidents that we’ve had in the past. We will like we do every offseason look at this issue, but remember, pine tar is one of a number of foreign substances, and you have to have a rule that fits for all of them. I don’t think there’s anything all that different about the Pineda.”

To MLB’s credit, they have been more swift than they have in the past in addressing questionable rules. For example, Major League Baseball recently abandoned the strict interpretation of the transfer rule. It shouldn’t be difficult for them to develop new or altered criteria which won’t implicitly reward surreptitious behavior.

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