Poster child Gerrit Cole upset he can’t use foreign substances any more (Video)

New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole isn’t happy about MLB’s crackdown on sticky substances, pleading with the league to listen to players.

Gerrit Cole has become baseball’s leading advocate for foreign substances.

On Wednesday, Cole looked frustrated and emotional talking about how hard he’s finding it to grip the ball since the league started cracking down on the use of sticky substances.

“Please just talk to us. Please just work with us,” Cole said.

Cole specifically referenced Wednesday’s game between the Yankees and Blue Jays, though he made it through eight innings without too many problems. He gave up two runs but got the 3-2 victory.

Gerrit Cole wants to use foreign substances

If Cole’s argument is that MLB’s timing with this is unreasonable, then he has a point. MLB had the chance to make sticky substances a point of emphasis during the offseason instead of cracking down in the middle of the season. New policies and procedures for checking for foreign substances should have been established well before June.

Then again, the substances are, were and always have been illegal. MLB is enforcing a rule that was already in place.

Maybe pitchers just want to use spider tack, but it’s not like any of them will have had illusions about its legality before all this. They’ve been hiding it on the bills of their hats or inside their gloves to get an edge.

Just like with the steroid era, the “everybody is doing it” excuse doesn’t fly.

The ball being hard to grip isn’t exactly a good argument either. It’s hard to hit a home run, but baseball doesn’t let players cork their bats to make it easier. It’s part of the game.

No one wants to see players injured, but allowing pitchers to continue to doctor the ball with foreign substances isn’t exactly the ideal way to go about it.