1 Happy St

On Tuesday it was reported here by Derek Zumsteg, author of a book titled "The Cheater's Guide to Baseball", that Los Angeles Angels pitcher Francisco Rodriguez is doctoring the ball before he throws it. He goes into pretty good detail (with pictures) of what he perceives to be blatant cheating, since MLB rules make it pretty clear that it's illegal for a pitcher to put a substance of any kind on the ball.

Normally, I couldn't care less about something like this. I'm the kind of person who likes cheating in baseball. I'm rooting for Barry Bonds to break Hank Aaron's HR record just so it gives the people who care (again, not me) something to cry about and me something to laugh about. But seeing as though there is now an entire book on the subject, there's no denying that it remains a hot topic for people. And I don't ignore hot topics. So my 2 cents:

I think MLB should simply remove all the 'no cheating' rules and allow these guys to do whatever they want. If they want to bulk up to 300 lbs of muscle using illegal performance enhancing drugs, so be it. If they want to dip the baseball in a jar of vaseline before they throw it, I say go right ahead. At least then every team would finally be on a level playing field. I think our biggest problem to date hasn't been with the players who continue to break the rules, but rather our inability to think outside the box for a viable solution. The powers that be will never be able to prevent cheating altogether, so they should embrace it!

[this message does not necessarily reflect the opinion of 1happyst, but only that of Brian, who with this post has officially killed any chances of ever being offered the job of Commissioner of MLB]