Kenny Rogers -- Part of a Cheating Culture?

I just watched a segment on ESPN's Sportscenter involving the Baseball Tonight crew, which now consists of anchorman Karl Ravech and analysts John Kruk, Peter Gammons and former Cubs manager Dusty Baker. As they commented on the brown substance which Fox cameras caught on the pitching hand of Kenny Rogers during Game 2 of the World Series, they admitted something to the cameras into which Ravech failed to dig deeper. They essentially admitted that baseball is a game of cheating.

When Ravech asked his analysts whether other pitchers in the Series would be monitored more closely, Kruk and Baker (both former players) made some curious comments. Both agreed that pitchers in the World Series will now need to hide the pine tar which, the analysts claimed, is almost inevitably used. Kruk stated that Rogers is not the only pitcher we'll see using pine tar in the Series, and that you only really cheat if you get caught. He further hinted that corked bats are something which players get away with (unless, like Sammy Sosa, the bat breaks and its secret spills out).

Baker agreed with his portly partner, stating that the only worry of the opposing players is that the pitcher isn't using a foreign substance (such as sandpaper, which Kruk referenced) to cut or alter the ball in order to put irregular movement on pitches. That, said Baker, is the players' chief concern. They're not worried about the pitcher gripping the ball with pine tar.

Although Ravech did not pursue these statements, I was intrigued. Everyone knows that baseball has always been a game of cheating, of gaining that slight edge. Foreign substances on balls, too much pine tar on bats, corking bats, stealing signs or taking steroids -- in this game of inches, everything is designed to give you a few more, whether on a curveball or fly ball.

Think of it this way -- if the players believed that Rogers was cheating (and Tony LaRussa admitted he noticed a substance which was not dirt, so how could the players not see it?) then they would have been furious. The championship is on the line, so anything the opponent does against the rules (supposedly) would drive them mad. Unless, of course, this rule is continually broken. And unless there is an unspoken culture of cheating throughout the sport.

The only question I want answered is, Do fans really want to know?