Eject Gaylord Perry | National Review Online

via Eject Gaylord Perry | National Review Online.

Long before steroids, baseball already showed it was unwilling to deal with cheaters in its midst. In 1987, Minnesota Twins pitcher Joe Niekro was ejected for having an emery board and sandpaper on the mound. He got a ten-game suspension. But years before, Major League Baseball MLB had allowed another cheater to run rampant for over a decade.

Gaylord Perry admitted, in his 1974 autobiography, to throwing the spitball in violation of multiple provisions of Rule 8.02a since 1964. He ultimately won 314 games and posted 3,564 strikeouts over a 22-year career, totals that got him elected to the Hall of Fame in 1991, his third year of eligibility.

In Me and the Spitter: An Autobiographical Confession, Perry not only detailed how he doctored the ball but also named his teammate Bob Shaw as a spitball pitcher who became his mentor in cheating.

At the time of Perry’s confession, MLB did nothing. He would be ejected from a game and suspended eventually, in 1982, while with the Seattle Mariners. It never should have taken that long.

It is not surprising, though. Look at the complaints about andro and steroids. Steroids were banned from baseball in 1991, and federal law forbids them unless they’re prescribed by a doctor. But much of the steroid use between 1991 and 2006, before testing became common, was by players who when in high school, college, and the minor leagues in the 1970s and early 1980s saw Gaylord Perry get away with flouting the rules.