Habitual offenders, Yankees have lost the benefit of the doubt when it comes to sticky stuff

New York Yankees pitcher Clarke Schmidt should have been ejected. Period! End of story.

Before returning to the mound for the fifth inning during Friday night's game against the Cincinnati Reds, the umpiring crew took issue with something tacky on Schmidt's wrist.

Rather than just ejecting the Yankees pitcher for using a foreign substance, the umpires requested that Schmidt go wash his hands. Upon his return, Schmidt was cleared to continue. Reds manager David Bell obviously took issue with the lack of enforcing the rules, and while arguing his case, was ejected.

Habitual offenders, Yankees have lost the benefit of the doubt when it comes to sticky stuff.

According to Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer, the crew chief told a pool reporter after the game that the third base umpire noticed something just a little tacky. However, the crew chief then said, Schmidt washed it off, and that wasn't sticky and it wasn't a foreign substance.

Okay, so we're now to the point where we're debating the difference between tacky and sticky? Come on. Do we need to pull out Wedster's Dictionary to define the difference between tacky and sticky?

I'm sorry, but this is not the first time, nor the second time that the New York Yankees have been embroiled in a controversy regarding sticky stuff. Domingo German was just suspended 10 games by Major League Baseball for such an infraction.

German was also called into question back on April 15th for the same issue. He was then given multiple opportunities to wash his hands, which resulted in Minnesota Twins manager Rocco Baldelli receiving the ole heave-ho just like Cincinnati Reds manager David Bell did on Friday.

Just like players are responsible for what goes into their bodies when it comes to MLB's performance enhancing drug policies, pitchers should be responsible for what's on their person before coming onto the field before each inning.

Imagine a batter coming to the plate, breaking his bat, only for the umpire to discover that there's cork inside. Is the ump going to send the player back to the dugout to grab a new one and continue the at-bat? No, he's going to be ejected. The same rules should apply to pitchers and foreign substances.

Yes, there's more to this whole situation, and the New York Yankees will tell everyone that what the umpires found on Clarke Schmidt's wrist was just fuzz from inside his glove. That may be true, but this is now multiple times that the Yankees have been called into question for such an offense. At this point, the Yankees have lost the benefit of the doubt when it comes to sticky stuff.