Why are baseball dugouts dirty

Sunflower seeds, discarded bubble gum wrappers, trash of all shapes and colors, spittle and tobacco juice help to paint a portrait on the floor of the dugout so abstract it would make Pablo Picasso jealous. I think I now know what T. Eliot was writing about when he penned The Waste Land after the experience that day. The only thing missing was a trio of witches and maybe an eye of newt or toe of frog to recreate a scene straight out of Macbeth. If that would have been the end of it, fine, but to complete the illusion just try to envision what happens when you gather 25 athletes of varying perspiration along with the coaching staff in a rather small, enclosed area for the better part of three hours.

One would think that such a miasma would have traumatized a then-boychick like me into avoiding sports for eternity, and eventually seeking out state-supported institutionalization. MLB Renovation Watch. Endangered Ballparks. Latest Popular Tags. But hey, different cultures, right? As documented by Nikkan Gendai , the two teams left their benches in very different states. At the bottom is the Japanese dugout, which is more or less spotless, with a carefully arranged stack of seat cushions being the only bit of clutter.

The Major League area, though, could almost as easily be called a pigsty as a dugout. Are they making fun of Japanese baseball? Those substances, like the BullFrog by itself, reduce spin. That could help the performance of low-spin pitches like sinkers and changeups.

But we were trying to add spin. Curran slams the rosin bag into the mound platform again to force out some of the powder. He collects the dust on his right hand and takes his index and middle fingers to his glossy, BullFrog-coated left forearm. He works the two ingredients together in his hand. Colcombe follows a similar procedure. They go through their fastball and breaking ball throws. But something's not right. The results aren't much different from their results from their baseline.

We must be screwing something up. Pilewski FaceTimes with one of his minor-league clients, who's pitching in an NL farm system. Curran and Colcombe coat their forearms in BullFrog and pound more rosin out from the bag. They combine the two into a lather. They go into their throwing motion.

Curran's fastball jumps up rpm but it's still no better than rosin alone. I try my hand at it. There's a tackiness to the combination, but I'm not sure I've blended it correctly.

The results are middling. Perhaps with more time we could get it right, but it's time to step up our stickiness. Pilewski still has his pro client on FaceTime, and he explains that we'll soon be moving onto pine tar, Cramer Firm Grip, and - the main event - Spider Tack. His client says he's aware of batters using Firm Grip more than pitchers. He says hitters are spraying it on their bat barrels in the hope that a millisecond of stick will give their fly balls and line drives more backspin and carry.

On my glove, I use Spider Tack. It doesn't show up. But using pine tar would show up because it's shinier. Pilewski's also texting with a couple of his buddies, fellow outsiders he formed a bond with during his self-learning quest. Among them is Barton Smith, a Utah State mechanical and aerospace engineering professor, known in nerdy baseball circles for his work on exploring how a baseball's seams create turbulence to affect pitch movement.

Like Pilewski, Smith's fascination with development comes because his son plays. Pilewski said Smith suggested his son try some pine tar. Smith's son looked back in horror at his father: "You want me to cheat?

Two other former SetPro. They're regulars on an iPhone text thread, as is Harold Mozingo, a former minor-league pitcher for the Blue Jays and Royals who runs his own facility in Virginia. They're all data-based development evangelists. Pilewski had never tested sticky stuff before with the Rapsodo.

During a text exchange, Mozingo informed him he conducted his own experiment with a number of substances you can find in a grocery store checkout line. Pilewski recites what Mozingo shared:. Pilewski and his fellow iconoclasts are always sharing ideas, insights, and data. How do hitters stand a chance? Pilewski suggests I be conservative with the pine tar, to squeeze out a little bit onto the plywood mound away from the pitching rubber.

I do, what would be a liberal portion of toothpaste on a toothbrush. It's a deep brown. I dab my right index and middle finger in and work it into my finger tips. It immediately feels stickier than the rosin or the BullFrog and rosin combo. It's almost like a greasy maple syrup. Curran's fastball jumped up from We tried the Firm Grip anyway, even if it's more commonly employed by hitters.

While Colcombe didn't see huge benefits, Curran did. His first fastball with the clear, sticky, rosin-based substance hit 2, rpm, his best to date for the day, at His baseline was 2, Curran's slider also hit a personal best for the day at 2, rpm. With no substance, his slider averaged 2, He gained two inches of horizontal movement. The Firm Grip felt like glue in aerosol form.

I hit a flat 1, rpm, up more than rpm from my baseline. I shook my head in amusement. One of the gains Curran made from training here is that he throws his four-seam fastball with nearly perfect efficiency.

That meant he was getting nearly perfect transverse spin, the type of spin that's responsible for movement, spin that's sensitive to Magnus effect. The other type of spin governing ball flight - gyroscopic - is spin like a bullet or football thrown in a spiral.

It produces no movement. Most pitches have an element of both types. As Curran reached into the jar of Spider Tack, he was careful to not apply too much to his throwing hand. He grabbed a ball, went into a set position, and threw. His pitch traveled at He threw another and hit 2, rpm. Curran looked pleased examining the Rapsodo data.

At this point, some younger players training at the facility gathered around the bullpen as Curran ripped off three of the four highest-spinning sliders of the afternoon. Only his Firm Grip-aided slider spun more. Colcombe followed with his top spin-rate fastball of the afternoon.

He looked at his hand afterward, seemingly amused by the sheer stickiness. We recalled how the minor leaguer on the phone told us Spider Tack is so sticky the ball's label will come off your fingertips. Pilewski's intel was that some combination of rosin, BullFrog, and pine tar was most commonly used in the pros but guys were more and more "going to straight Spider Tack and calling it a day, if they hide it well enough.

Pilewski asked Colcombe and Curran if anyone else on the field could be helping pitchers.