Astros in another ‘sticky’ situation
Verlander among MLB pitchers named in suit over illegal grip
Gerrit Cole confronted a sticky situation. The substance he took to the mound to get a better grip on his pitches didn’t work as well in cold weather. The Astros had trips to Seattle and Minnesota scheduled for April 2019 and he needed help.
“Hey Bubba,” Cole wrote in a text message on Jan. 17, 2019. “It’s Gerrit Cole. I was wondering if you could help me out with this sticky situation.”
Cole’s reaching out to a nowfired clubhouse attendant with the Angels for help doctoring baseballs was revealed in court documents that connected Justin Verlander and several other highprofile pitchers to the “sticky stuff” and what could be baseball’s next debate over its rules.
While the 2017-18 sign-stealing scandal that engulfed the Astros was the stuff of the digital technology age, using high-quality cameras and carefully researched algorithms to decode catchers’ signs to pitchers, the brouhaha that threatens to engulf Verlander and Cole is almost as old as the game itself, dating back to the days when pitchers could hurl spitballs with impunity.
Cole, who left the Astros for the Yankees after the 2019 season, is no different than most of his baseball brethren. All seek some sort of competitive edge, often skirting established rules.
Major League Baseball prohibits players from applying any foreign substances to baseballs, but the sport has long turned a blind eye toward the rules, governing the game through a “gentleman’s agreement,” according to lawyers for Brian “Bubba” Harkins, the fired clubhouse attendant.
Harkins, a longtime attendant in the visiting clubhouse at Angel Stadium, was fired on March 3, 2020 after a Major League Baseball investigation discovered he provided various sticky substances to opposing pitchers that aided their grips. The league, which does not comment on ongoing litigation, is not looking into the issue further.
Harkins filed suit against the Angels and Major League Baseball in September claiming he was a “scapegoat” for the league’s efforts to crack down on foreign substances. According to the suit, Harkins — an Angels employee for more than 30 years — learned how to mix rosin, pine tar and Mota stick from Troy Percival and other Angels pitchers in the ’90s. Harkins began to make the concoction for Angels pitchers.
“As these pitchers moved from teamto teamthrough free agency or trades, other players learned of the Sticky Stuff,” Harkins’ opposition to dismissal read. “Visiting players began asking Bubba to prepare it for them. He did so as a courtesy. After all, his job was hospitality. What Bubba was doing was nothing out of the ordinary.”
The suit claimed the Angels had evidence that implicated Cole, Verlander, Edwin Jackson, Max Scherzer, Felix Hernandez, Corey Kluber, Joba Chamberlain, Adam Wainwright, and Tyler Chatwood— aswell as various Angels pitchers. In November, Major League Baseball and the Angels filed a motion seeking to dismiss the lawsuit.
In response, Harkins’ attorneys submitted 373 pages worth of evidence opposing the dismissal — including a message from Cole sent before his spectacular 2019 season began. Cole struck out a franchise-record 326 batters and finished as runner-up to Verlander in American League Cy Young voting.
On Jan. 17, 2019, Cole texted Harkins to ask “if you could help me out with this sticky situation,” adding a winking emoji.
“We don’t see you until May,” Cole wrote, “but we have some road games in April that are in cold weather places. The stuff I had last year seizes up when it gets cold.”
Colewas not available for comment.
No foreign substances
Pitchers have long utilized foreign substances to better grip the baseball while umpires and opponents turn something of a blind eye. Better grips mean better control — and batters are better off when pitchers can control their hard-throwing arsenal.
“I pitched in 2 games professionally (as a position player),” Verlander’s younger brother, Ben, wrote on Twitter Friday. “Both times I was warming up in the bullpen I was offered some ‘stuff.’ It’s everywhere. At every level. And as a hitterwe knewthat and I’m fine with that. Anyway to keep 100 (mph) away from my head.”
In a February interview on HBO, free-agent pitcher Trevor Bauer alleged that 70 percent of his sport’s pitchers used some form of substance on the baseball, creating what Bauer called “a bigger advantage than steroids ever were.
Two days after Bauer’s interview aired, former MLB senior vice president Chris Young sent a memo to league owners, general managers and managers.
The note reminded that “club personnel are strictly prohibited from providing, applying, creating, concealing, or otherwise facilitating the use of foreign substances by players on the field.” The tactic bears a similarity to Major League Baseball’s handling of budding sign-stealing concerns in 2017, too.
After the Red Sox and Yankees were disciplined for violations in September, then-chief baseball officer Joe Torre circulated memos to clubs reminding them of electronic sign-stealing rules and promising punishment.
Worries about publicity
Harkinswas fired three days after Young’s memo circulated. Lawsuit records show he applied to work for various clubs — including the Astros — as a clubhouse manager. The Astros did not respond to his employment inquiry, according to the lawsuit.
Verlander texted Harkins on March 6, telling him he was “sorry to hear about this (…).” Verlander asked Harkins to phone him to discuss something he heard from teammate Martin Maldonado
According to Harkins’ notes of his conversation with Verlander, Maldonado told Verlander that home Angels clubhouse attendants believed Verlander gave Harkins up to MLB. Verlander said in the text message to Harkins that “Maldonado just toldme he heard something that’s totally not true!”
Verlander and Harkins talked on March 7. Notes of the conversation were included in the evidence.
“Justin can’t believe this was (…) to go out to the media,” Harkins wrote in his conversation notes. “(Verlander) says the Astros have suffered w/media and players going against players.”
In a conversation with Harkins on March 7, Verlander allegedly said he wanted to back Harkins publicly, but “with the scrutiny that their team is under it will be very difficult.”
“(Verlander) has talked to Mike Fyers (sic) about this and other pitchers as well,” Harkins wrote in notes summarizing the phone call. “Justin knows on the MLB side that they have been finding out that teams have been hiring chemists and doing studies to come up with stuff that is more advanced to increase spin rate.”
“There are also organizations that are hiring free agents and telling them that they can increase their spin rate for guys that don’t use stuff and telling them they can increase their spin rate and help them as a pitcher to entice them to sign with them.”
Pitcher Mike Fiers, with whom Harkins claims Verlander spoke, blew the whistle on Houston’s sign-stealing scandal in Nov. 2019, leading to the “scrutiny” that apparently forbade Verlander from sticking up for Harkins publicly.
Verlanderwas not available for comment.