I'm all for a suspension of Matusz.
However, there are some significant differences.
1. The Orioles, to my knowledge, have not been caught cheating before. In fact, they were not caught cheating to the point where the league had to coverup the first cheating scandal by immediately destroying all evidence. At the very least it creates a perception that the cheating was so egregious that the league covered it up so the fans and the rest of the league would not lose faith in the NFL.
2. This appears to be Matusz's first time using pine tar because it is fairly easy to spot. Meanwhile, Brady has apparently been deflating footballs since 2007. And this right in the midst of the SpyGate scandal being uncovered.
3. Matusz basically came clean about the pinetar incident and isn't trying to appeal the suspension. As I mentioned, he's not claiming that it was part of a 'weight loss program' or any other silly nonsense that insults our intelligence. He tried to get away with it, got caught and took his punishment. Yeah, it still sucks and 2 wrongs don't make a right, but it's just better to handle it that way instead of continuing to blatantly lie and try to call out the league and Ted Wells as a conspiracy to target Matusz.
4. No fanboy experimental testing to show that the pinetar actually 'grew out of his poor due to the conditions over time' or trying to refute that pinetar would not make much of a difference. At least those fanboys got exposed and their credibility as researchers and statisticians rightfully took a hit.
5. MLB has little credibility to begin with and it's part of the reason why it went from the #1 sport in America as late as the 1980's to arguably the #3 most popular sport in the US today. They allowed the use of PED's to happen rampantly and it was pretty clear that they thought the offense would lead to more tickets. But, in the end they found that it was a quick band-aid approach as the fans didn't take the players smashing long-held records seriously and it completely cheapened the game. Meanwhile, lots of players died young, pitchers like Tony Saunders suffered horrific career ending injuries likely due to PED use. If anything, a pitcher using pinetar and breaking the rules is just 'old hat' and some NFL fans would like to see the NFL not make the same mistake that sports like baseball and boxing (which were FAR more popular than football not too long ago) made.
The fact is, all of the pine tar in the world isn't going to change the fact that somebody here posted that the Pats could not have possibly cheated and they were found to have cheated. And that the statistics show that it may have *greatly* benefited the Patriots. And that Tom Brady is continuing to forever ruin his legacy and at least Kraft and Belichick were smart enough to stop before they continued to ruin their already tarnished legacies.
YR
