F-Rod Is A Big Fan Of The Bottom Of His Cap

In his new book The Cheater's Guide To Baseball, Derek Zumsteg looks at all the different ways baseball players and managers have cheated (or tried to cheat) throughout the years. It's a highly entertaining book; our favorite part is "Tips For Doctoring Bats For Amateur Players."

Zumsteg has set up a blog for the book, and he thinks he caught Angels closer Francisco Rodriguez messing with the ball a couple of nights ago.

4-2-2007, against the Rangers, K-Rod put something on the ball repeatedly during the 9th inning, and wasn't even subtle about it. First, I'm going to admit these are bad pictures. ... Compare the movement on those pitches to the movement on the fastballs where he clearly doesn't go to the hat brim. Also, watching the video, it's a lot more striking than stills can easily convey — it's clearly not a cap adjustment, but something else entirely.

Honestly, we kind of want to hire Zumsteg to watch all games and point out all the little cheats. We don't really mind cheating — everyone cheats, at everything — but we think it's fun when someone points out something that we miss but should be obvious.

Francisco Rodriguez Doctoring The Ball [The Cheater's Guide To Baseball]

(UPDATE: MLB says the substance was "resin.")