The Angels Blogosphere is rampant today with claims of Mariano Rivera using a spitball. Many seem to suggest that this is how Rivera has been so successful over the years.
This douchebag takes screenshots of the game that suggest that Rivera spit directly on the ball. He goes on to suggest that FOX is in cahoots with Rivera.
Evidence offered: a "spit halo" on top of the baseball after it's been "spit upon":
Of course that's during the fade-in to Scioscia, where you can clearly see this "spit halo" is the fucking Magestic logo on Scioscia's jacket.
I would say this is pretty conclusive evidence of why Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera is able to throw only one pitch that has unpredictable, yet precise movement.
He has mastered the Angels so far in the ALCS but has Major League Baseball gotten a look at how he "warms up" for his appearance on the mound? You be the judge...
With a tie game in the bottom of the 10th, the Yankees bring in Rivera.
After warming up, he has his back to home plate so the home plate ump can't see.
He looks down at the ball, then up to see if the 2nd base ump is watching.
He then looks back at the ball and appears to spit on it.
And when he tests clean for steroids they say he is not a cheater.
Total and complete nonsense. First of all, Rivera wouldn't look down at a baseball and drop spit directly from his mouth onto it. Secondly, he'd have to have been doing this for 15 years, and nobody noticed until now. Thirdly, baseballs get changed out so often, he'd have to do this 5-10 times per game.
Absolute nonsense, and even though the Angels won, total sour grapes by their fanbase.
By the way, here's a slowed-down video of the incident, which clearly shows the spit travels past Rivera's hand and the ball and travels to the ground. Funny that the Angels blogs decide to show misleading screenshots rather than the entire video:
Fire Joe Torre. Do it quickly, do it before the dust settles. Sure, call him and give him a chance to go out on a "retirement" as a gentleman, but do it now.
It's high time the media stopped attributing every Yankee triumph to the manager and every Yankee misstep to its best player.
It's time the media stop overlooking the failures of the manager in starting players who are ill-equiped to be starters (Hi, Eyechart!) in postseason games and starting the "red-hot" (postseason average: under .200) HidekiMatsui in every game over the Yankees' second best hitter in Jason Giambi.
It's time the Yankees stopped having a manager who only trusts certain players based on ridiculous standards like "guts" and "hearts of lions" and "veteraness" and time for a guy who will play the BEST players available to win games.
It's time for a manager who will try to win games, and not eshew tactics such as bunting on a pitcher with a bum ankle because he doesn't want to "play the game that way."
It's time for the highest paid manager in the history of baseball to look back and wonder why he's been a complete failure for the past four years, and wonder what happened to the free ride he's been given.
It's time for the media to finally place blame where it's deserved, and lay it in the lap of the man they'd praise if the Yankees had won.
Most importantly, it's time for the man to step down. It's time for him to move on and realize he can't motivate a team anymore, and that the old axiom about a team taking on the personality of its manager is true. An even keel and calmness is good in the face of adversity, but it's been time for the Yankees to show some fire for many years, and instead they've acted like they sit on the bench, sipping green tea, waiting for someone else to win it for them.
