MLB standardizes how baseballs are prepped to be put in play

NEW YORK — Major League Baseball is standardizing procedures for rubbing baseballs and their removal from humidors in an effort to establish more consistency amid complaints about slickness that followed the crackdown on sticky substances. “Baseballs should not be out of the humidor for more than two hours at any point prior to first pitch, and if it will take club staff longer than two hours, the baseballs should be pulled out of the humidor in smaller batches.” The memo followed review of video of each team’s rubbing procedures. Rubbing mud should be applied to each baseball for at least 30 seconds, ensuring that mud is rubbed thoroughly and consistently into the entire leather surface of the ball.” After rubbing, balls are to be put back in Rawlings boxes, with dividers between each, and returned to the humidor until the home team’s gameday compliance monitors gets them for game use. A bag must be cleaned with a damp cloth and then a dry cloth before it is used “to make sure there is no excess residue, dust or moisture.” Following a crackdown on use of sticky substances as grip aides last June 21, New York Mets pitcher Chris Bassitt complained about the baseballs in April and Los Angeles Angels pitcher Michael Lorenzen last weekend after a pitch he threw hit Seattle’s Justin Upton in the head. Yet overall, hit batters are averaging 0.40 per team per game, down from 0.43 last year and 0.46 during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, which was the most since a record high 0.47 in 1899.