If You're Pitch Tipping, You're Cheating, A-Rod

More dark clouds for Rodriguez

“Alex Rodriguez is in a horrible spot,” writes former Major League Baseball outfielder Doug Glanville writes in the New York Times op-ed piece “No Tipping, Please.” No, he isn’t saying that the former poster boy for Major League Baseball excellence is now resigned to waiting tables sloppily, or that he’ll need online payday loans or credit repair soon.

What he is saying is that if allegations are true, A-Rod has been caught cheating once again. The victim is the game of baseball and all of its fans.

Tipping ain’t a city in China

First came the admission that he used steroids while a member of the Texas Rangers ball club. Now investigative reporter Selena Roberts alleges in her new book “A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez” that Rodriguez was involved in a reciprocal pitch-tipping exchange with friends on other teams his own was playing against.

What is pitch tipping? For those of you who don’t know, Glanville explains it nicely:

Tipping pitches involves watching your opponent like a well-trained code-breaker. It most often happens when there is a runner at second base, where he is in a unique position to steal any signs the catcher is relaying to the pitcher - so well positioned, in fact, that catchers and pitchers have a special set of signs for that situation. We all know the basic signs - one finger for fastball, two fingers for curve. But with a runner on second, the real sign may be the one right after an indicator: for example, it could be the first sign after the catcher puts down three fingers, or the second sign after he wiggles all of his fingers. ... click here to read the rest of the article titled "If You're Pitch Tipping, You're Cheating, A-Rod"