I have been planning to write a column on Spitting & Baseball for some time now, but after watching this evening’s game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Los Angeles Angels (TB 4 LA 2) the spitting issue seemed to come more into focus.

There was an incident at first base after B.J. Upton hit an infield ground ball ran to first base and the Angels overthrew first base, a runner scored from third Upton was safe at first and then somehow, beyond belief and replay, the umpire called Upton out for what he perceived to be a turn to second base after the first baseman touched him while he was to the right of the foul line.

Tampa Bay’s manager Joe Maddon went ballistic, charged the umpire with vitriolic expletives and was eventually thrown out of the ballgame.  What followed was as interesting as the inexsuable call. Video cameras captured the short spectacled umpire, spitting fast balls between his teeth.

The cameras then focused on B.J. Upton in the dugout spitting the same sputum fast balls over the railing.

I never understood what all this spitting was about in baseball.  I played a lot of baseball, but was never very good at spitting.  Perhaps that is why I didn’t make the show.

I also never realized that spitting was an integral part of the game; I always thought it had something to do with hitting, throwing and catching the ball.

After all spitting really doesn’t exist in other sports.

Can you imagine an Olympic competitor in ping pong spitting on the floor, or a basketball player doing the same?  We don’t even have spitting in tennis by players or umpires, and that is an outdoor sport.

It seems to me that owners of major league franchises should insure the fans that the field is sprayed with Purell before and after games with all this spitting going on.

Now we know that chewing tobacco has been a big part of the game for years with both players, managers and umpires, perhaps that is why the infield has that brown cast.

Some ballplayers chew bubble gum and blow bubbles, others chew slippery elm and they all spit.

Ballplayers spit better than the average population, some probably spit knuckle balls.

No one has ever gotten down to the real reason for spitting in baseball, but I saw all the reasons this evening, the umpire making a bad call knew he was wrong and was spitting out of guilt, Upton was spitting out of frustration for the bad call and all the other ballplayers spit because they grab their croch too often.