Tampa Bay Pitcher Chucked From Game For “Foreign Substance” in His Glove

Tampa Bay Rays relief pitcher Joel Peralta didn’t even get to throw a single pitch in Tuesday night’s Tampa Bay victory over the Washington Nationals. Peralta was thrown out of the game while he was warming up in the bullpen. During his warmup Washington Manager, Davey Johnson, asked the field umpires to have a look at Peralta’s glove.

When the umpires entered the bullpen to do the check they found a significant amount of pine tar in Peralta’s glove. They confiscated the glove and chucked Peralta out of the game.

When Peralta was exiting the field he tipped his cap to the Washington dugout.

He said after the game,

“Good for them. They still lose the game.”

Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon was really ticked off at the on field umpires and said that Johnson was “cowardly” for asking to have Peralta checked. Peralta used to play for the Washington Nationals.

Maddon told the Press after the game,

“Insider trading, man. It’s bush. It’s bogus. That’s way too easy, right there.”

Peralta avoided answering if he intentionally juiced his glove saying,

“That’s a glove that I use for batting practice every day. I’m every day playing catch with it, it’s hot here — that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

Johnson said to the press,

“If somebody has been known to use a foreign substance on their glove or their hat, a nice hot night is the time to use it, so I asked them to check and obviously he had it. It was a rumor that he liked a little pine tar.”

Maddon answered back by saying that using Pine Tar in a glove is common practice.

Maddon said,

“Joel is using pine tar and had pine tar in his glove. I’m saying to suggest he’s the only one that’s doing it is inappropriate.”