Five days after the fact, there's still a lot of talk floating around about the brown smudge on Kenny Rogers' pitching hand.



Officially, the umpires ruled it as dirt, which, as was eloquently stated by supervisor Steve Palermo, is "what we play on" and therefore not illegal. Rogers said it was dirt, spit and resin, left over from when he rubbed down the game balls in the bullpen. Detroit closer Todd Jones speculated that it was chocolate cake. Naturally, St. Louis manager Tony LaRussa thought it a more specious substance, but he didn't make a big deal either -- he just asked that it be gone and it was gone, and Rogers went on to pitch seven more scoreless innings.

So here's the question: If the other team's manager let it go, the umpires let it go, and the pitcher arguably did better without it, why won't the media drop it?

We Tigers fans naturally feel put upon by these accusations of cheating. Our boys have done so well this summer, we can't help but think writers are undermining their accomplishments. It's hurtful to think that a title would come with an asterisk, that the first winning season in fourteen years would be all but entirely negated by doubt, that our star pitcher would have to endure PineTarWatch 2007. (If the Cardinals win, of course, the world will forget all about Kenny in its mad rush to buy red caps.)

The thing we have to remember, though, is it's not just a Detroit team being overlooked again, like the Pistons in 2004. Maybe it would be if Ron Artest was a Piston. Because Kenny Rogers isn't the same hard-working nobody you expect to see on a working-class Detroit team. No, Kenny Rogers and the media have a history. They go way back.

This is the guy who beat up a cameraman while he was playing for Texas. This is the guy who was recently accused of assaulting a fan and his son outside Comerica Park. This is the guy who, until his dominant performance these last two weeks, had never won a baseball game in the postseason. This is a guy who used to play for the New York Yankers, and God knows we love to hate them. So anything that can call his sudden resurgence and relevance into question is going to be used against him. It's nothing personal against us, Tigers fans. It's personal against Kenny Rogers.

However, underneath my journalistic background, I remain devoted to Motown and its mighty Bengals, and feel the need to defend my team. Therefore, I hold steadfast that the smudge was, in fact, honey-bourbon barbecue sauce.