The Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees have developed a rivalry over the past few years. Blue Jays’ budding ace Alek Manoah found himself right in the middle of it last season, when he underwent a screaming match with Yankees players. Manoah recently added more fuel to the fire when he was asked who he thinks MLB’s biggest cheater is of all-time, per Starting 9 on Twitter.
“Who is the worst cheater in baseball history”
Alek Manoah: Gerrit Cole pic.twitter.com/WORDIxBbSO
— Starting 9 (@Starting9) November 21, 2022
“Gerrit Cole,” Alek Manoah responded to the question. “He cheated, he used a lot of like sticky stuff to make his pitches better, and he kind of got called out on it.”
MLB has cracked down on the use of foreign substances over the past couple of seasons. Pitchers have used substances to gain spin rate on pitches for years now, and Cole was a pitcher linked to the use of these substances.
Alek Manoah’s call-out of Gerrit Cole isn’t exactly breaking news. Cole even admitted, in a sense, to previously using a substance called Spider Tack.
“I don’t [long pause] … I don’t know … I don’t quite know how to answer that, to be honest,” Cole said during an interview last year, per ESPN. “There are customs and practices that have been passed down from older players to younger players, from the last generation of players to this generation of players, and I think there are some things that are certainly out of bounds in that regard.”
The use of foreign substances is now illegal for pitchers, but that hasn’t stopped controversy from brewing in recent action.
If Alek Manoah pitches against Gerrit Cole next season, it will be must watch TV without question.
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