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Ump Who Tossed Edwin Díaz For Sticky Stuff Has Completely Changed His Approach

Maybe a bit too heavy-handed the first time around.

Josh Wilson

Umpiring crew addresses Justin Steele for "sticky stuff" during a Cubs game against the Pirates
Umpiring crew addresses Justin Steele for "sticky stuff" during a Cubs game against the Pirates / Foul Territory on Twitter
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New York Mets closer Edwin Diaz served a 10-game suspension earlier this season after he was ejected for "sticky stuff," a rule prohibiting players from using any foreign substance to "discolor or damage the ball," according to rule 3.01 of the official MLB rules and regulations.

Tuesday night, the same umpire, Vic Carapazza, who ejected Diaz addressed Chicago Cubs pitcher Justin Steele for a sticky stuff concern, but instead of ejecting him, asked him to go and wash his hands. He stayed in the game.

The rule is excruciatingly arbitrary and has been critiqued for that reason, but it gives umpires a great deal of latitude and discretion to judge the situation how they see fit because of how open-ended it is.

And that's exactly why one umpire can treat two similar situations very differently.

There could be a number of good-enough explanations for why the situations were treated differently. Maybe it was an obviously less egregious substance. Perhaps the umpire was directed to escalate such situations slower after the Diaz incident was criticized en masse. Maybe Steele's hand was sticky, but not that sticky. Hate that explanation all you want, but that's a problem with the rule, not with the umpire.

For what it's worth, hand washing is not explicitly referenced in the rulebook.

Don't hate the player, hate the game. Don't hate the umpire, hate the rulebook.

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Josh Wilson
JOSH WILSON

Josh Wilson is the news director of the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in 2024, he worked for FanSided in a variety of roles, most recently as senior managing editor of the brand’s flagship site. He has also served as a general manager of Sportscasting, the sports arm of a start-up sports media company, where he oversaw the site’s editorial and business strategy. Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He loves a good nonfiction book and enjoys learning and practicing Polish. Wilson lives in Chicago but was raised in upstate New York. He spent most of his life in the Northeast and briefly lived in Poland, where he ate an unhealthy amount of pastries for six months.

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