Rogers Was Masterful, but Did He Cheat?

DETROIT, Oct. 23, 2006 — -- Here at The North Face photo shoot, otherwise known as the 102nd World Series, you didn't know whether they were going to play Game 2 or a Grey Cup championship.

But they played Game 2, Detroit beat St. Louis 3-1 and, oh, by the way, Tigers starter Kenny Rogers may or may not have cheated for an inning.

With or without some sort of mysterious brown sludge on the palm of his pitching hand, Rogers was nearly unhittable. He certainly was un-scoreable. But did he get caught red- (or brown-) handed?

The Comerica Park scoreboard said it was 40 degrees, and I'm sure it was -- at noon. But at 8:23 Sunday night, when you saw mitts and mittens as Rogers delivered the first pitch, it wasn't any 40 degrees. It was Michigan versus Ohio State cold. Even the tiger statues lining the outside of the stadium were looking for fleece jackets.

But the 41-year-old Rogers warmed the crowd of 42,533 with another masterful performance. And because of Rogers, the Tigers will arrive in St. Louis with the Series tied, 1-1. The question is, did he cheat to do it?

Thanks to Fox's TV cameras, America -- and likely the Cardinals watching in the visiting clubhouse -- learned that Rogers had a brown substance just below the thumb of his left hand. The stuff was there in the first inning, when Cardinals hitters apparently noticed some of Rogers' pitches doing interesting things. Then it was gone in the second inning.

Hmmm. Was it pine tar? If so, then Rogers cheated. And if he cheated, then Rogers is working on quite a résumé: shoved a TV cameraman … got caught with illegal goop on his hand … ran his 2006 postseason scoreless streak to a previously un-Rogers-like 23 consecutive innings. Four more shutout innings and he ties the legendary Christy Mathewson for the all-time single postseason record.

Rogers said it was dirt on his inner palm. Of course, Rogers said a lot of things, some of which made sense, some of which sounded like a guy with a very selective memory. All I know is that by the time Rogers, MLB umpire supervisor Steve Palermo, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and Tigers manager Jim Leyland were done "explaining" what happened … nobody still knew what happened.