Save a cow, throw a dirty baseball!

Since we're all trying to live "Greener" lives, I have a conservation suggestion for those who play and run our national pastime -- stop throwing away baseballs like they were empty beer cans. (I'm kidding -- I don't actually think conserving baseballs will stem global warming; I'm just irked that we discard so much perfectly good cowhide!)

If you watch a Major League Baseball game nowadays, you will see scores of perfectly useable baseballs discarded for no good reason. If a pitcher bounces a curveball in the dirt, the catcher, for example -- almost by reflex, reaches behind his back to exchange said ball for a new one for the next pitch. Why? Pitchers and catchers will argue that the bounce-in-the-dirt creates a scuff on the ball, making it harder for the pitcher to grip. I say "Phooey!" A ball pitched in the dirt isn't damaged nearly as much as one that's smacked into the right-centerfield gap, rolls around on the warning track and then gets thrown back into the infield... and yet we don't see pitchers demanding new balls in those situations. Baseballs are designed to endure punishment. For God's sake -- Randy Johnson once threw a 98 MPH fastball into a bird, killing it in mid-flight, and that ball was still good enough to pitch again.

Pitchers are spoiled. They only have to work every 5th day, they get to pick the music on the clubhouse stereo on the nights when they start, and they think that they should get a new ball every time a particle of dust floats onto the seems. Well, I say, "Get over it!" If the rest of us can re-use the dirty towels in our hotel rooms and drive hybrid cars, you pitchers can throw a slightly smudged ball.