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The New York Yankees have always been the darlings of Major League Baseball.
The Yankees have won 26 World Series titles. They’re the league’s most popular franchise, and they generate the most revenue.
So it’s always a little bit suspicious when it appears that the Bronx Bombers get a little bit of help of the league or its umpires.
Take, for instance, a study that showed that the Yankees had more juiced baseballs, by far, than any other team in the league during Aaron Judge’s quest for the home run record a year ago.
Suspicious, right?
As it turns out, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Last season, Major League Baseball issued a memo to all its teams about cracking down on the use of foreign substances by pitchers to try to improve grip and spin rate.
“If an umpire’s inspection reveals that the pitcher’s hand is unquestionably sticky or shows unmistakable signs of the presence of a foreign substance, the umpire will conclude that the pitcher was applying a foreign substance to the baseball for the purpose of gaining an unfair competitive advantage. In such a case the pitcher is ejected and suspended automatically,” the memo read according to Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated.
Pretty straightforward, right?
Well, it appears that’s not the case.
New York Yankees pitcher Domingo German was pitching a perfect game through three innings against the Minnesota Twins on Saturday.
Twins manager Rocco Baldelli then asked umpires to check German for a foreign substance. The umpires obliged and appeared to find something on German. But rather than ejecting the Yankees twirler, he was just asked to wash his hands before returning to the mound.
Meanwhile, Baldelli was ejected.
Just to sum this up…Domingo German was cheating by using sticky stuff, the umpires caught him using the sticky stuff, was only told to wash his hands, while the only person ejected here was Rocco Baldelli for wanting the umpires to enforce the rules. K. pic.twitter.com/ih5j5KJ9R2
— Jared Carrabis (@Jared_Carrabis) April 15, 2023
The Yankees went on win the game 6-1, and fans could not believe German was allowed to re-enter the game.
Anybody else gets tossed. But not the @MLB darling. Got to protect them at any cost https://t.co/79Zgs72eyD
— 🌵 (@Kymyson) April 15, 2023
Yankees caught cheating with no repercussions lmao. MLB is a joke. https://t.co/fnGWmD9Dpv
— Phil (@LatinooHeat) April 15, 2023
https://twitter.com/ChangToCle/status/1647357591385718791?s=20
This is an extremely bad look for Major League Baseball. https://t.co/Qn7X0f73Ci
— Ben Yoel (@Ben_Yoel) April 15, 2023
Lmao Yankees cheating? No way 😂
I thought German being as good as he was today was suspect. Was probably cheating against the Guards last week too
Crazy how MLB just chooses to not enforce rules when they want to https://t.co/jOeyiFzUut
— Mel (@mellow_nie91) April 15, 2023
Must be nice to be the New York Yankees.