Michael Pineda not only pitcher in majors to try pine tar

New York Yankees pitcher Michael Pineda is hardly the first major leaguer to head to the mound hoping to get away with using pine tar to aid his grip.

And he won’t be the last, those in baseball say, because it’s simply part of the game.

He just got caught.

“It’s not like somebody sits you down and says, ‘Hey, dude, you should try this.’ You see things,” Washington Nationals reliever Drew Storen said. “And being around the game, you know things that can be done.”

What stood out for many around the sport was how glaringly obvious the splotch of brown goo was on the side of Pineda’s neck. It got him ejected from a game against the Boston Red Sox and drew a 10-game suspension Thursday.

“That was pretty blatant,” Storen said. “Wasn’t really subtle.”

Padres manager Bud Black said it’s “common knowledge among baseball people” that “there are pitchers – and probably more than you would think – that use some sort of substance to gain tack on your fingers, because at times it is needed, based on weather conditions, based on the personal preference of a pitcher.”

Black, who pitched in the majors from 1981-95, noted it usually would be “some minimal amount of pine tar that maybe really doesn’t overly affect the outcome of a game.”

The sticky stuff is used by hitters, legally, to help make sure bats don’t slip out of their hands. Pitchers use pine tar, illegally, for better holds on a ball, especially when cold weather makes it slick.

“And the option is this: I either get a grip on the ball or I’m hitting someone in the neck because I haven’t got a grip on it. And if you ask the hitters, they’d say, ‘Get a grip on it.’ You’ve still got to make pitches,” New York Mets manager Terry Collins said.

“You’ve got to be a little bit discreet,” Collins continued. “You can’t just, like, walk out with a pine tar bottle. I was a little surprised when I saw the replay last night that that was quite as evident as that. But you could check every pitcher. I’m sure there would be a lot of guys that would have something.”

The line of thinking goes: Once I check your pitcher, you’re going to check mine.