Major League Baseball

Beane, Young deny Braden's claims of A's 'application station' for foreign substances

Published May. 27, 2015 2:01 p.m. ET

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The issue of pitchers using foreign substances has been in the news lately within the realm of Major League Baseball, as Will Smith of the Milwaukee Brewers and Brian Matusz of the Baltimore Orioles were ejected from ballgames after being caught in the act. 

The furor led to Dallas Braden, former pitcher-turned-ESPN-analyst, to weigh in...and he did so with some comments regarding his former employers, the Oakland A's (for whom he tossed a perfect game on May 9th, 2010 against the Tampa Bay Rays).

While 'doctoring' the baseball is more or less considered 'widespread' across the league, it's still against the rules. Braden, though, took things a step further by suggesting that the A's had an 'application station' during spring training for pitchers to use. As John Shea of the SF Chronicle recapped, Braden said on Baseball Tonight that “Here, we tried to gain an advantage or at least put ourselves in a little bit better position to gain control."

Here's a clip of Braden's comments on BBTN:

Curt Young, current A's pitching coach, told Shea that he "never saw him do it", pertaining to Braden and his supposed substance application. 

A's general manager Billy Beane went further. When told of Braden's comments, Beane said the following to John Hickey of Inside Bay Area: "I didn't see the quote, but I have no idea what Dallas is talking about."

Former MLB pitcher Greg Swindell chimed in with this message on Twitter (and the tweet was subsequently re-posted by Dennis Eckersley):

What does this all mean for the league? Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona recently shared his perspective, and more talk like this might spur a larger conversation. Only time will tell.

(h/t SF Chronicle, Inside Bay Area)

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