Mark Mulder is a three-time champion of the American Century Championships played at Edgewood in South Lake Tahoe.
This year’s version, complete with fans returning after a year off, is set for July 7-11. Tuesday, June 30, Mulder took time to speak with the media via a Zoom call.
The former Oakland A’s pitcher and two-time all-star had some interesting comments when it came to the current pitching controversy about doctoring baseballs, as well as the possibility of the A’s getting a new stadium in Oakland.
ACES editor Dennis Miller sat in on the Zoom call and edited the comments from the call that also featured defending ACC champ Mardy Fish, and Stan Utley, the golf swing coach who has been working with Charles Barkley.
Question: Mark, obviously there’s so much going on right now with MLB and checking pitchers and all of that. Just wanted to get your thoughts weighing in on that and how you might have dealt with that, if you had to, in your era.
MARK MULDER: I wasn’t someone that used anything, to be honest. I was using the sweat on my head, on my arm, whatever it was, licking my fingers. I think it’s a bad look for baseball the way it’s going right now. To be fair, I probably would have reacted the same way Scherzer or Sergio Romo did. I would have just taken it all off, thrown it on the ground and said, here, have at it.
The way they went about it, in my opinion, doing it in the middle of the season see, my time was before all the numbers, all the spin rate, all that kind of stuff. I’m not going to sit here and say I wouldn’t have used some pine tar or something had it made that pitch that much better or if I could see numbers that had made it that says, hey, look how much better it is. I don’t know.
I had some teammates that would use some pine tar, or some guys would use the BullFrog on their hands, mixing it with rosin. I never touched a rosin bag my entire career. I never understood – it made my hand feel all dusty. So, why would I want it to feel dryer and dustier than what the balls already were?
The clubhouse kids or whoever rub up these balls months in advance and they sit in storage rooms until they grab the box. And when the umpire throws it back to you, they’re incredibly slick and dry and dusty.
So, the stuff if you want to make it that fair, then why are the hitters with batting gloves and pine tar and the sticks and all that stuff? If they want to hold onto that bat, wouldn’t we want to hold on to the ball? I know everybody has a different opinion, but with the stuff these guys have, I’m sure with the stuff the pitchers have, I’m pretty sure these hitters want to know that the pitchers know where it’s going.
That’s a scary situation, when you have someone who maybe doesn’t have the best command to begin with, who has a dry ball in their hand that is throwing 100 miles an hour. That could be life changing. You don’t want to see that become something maybe down the road, who knows.
As many rules as MLB has changed in the last few years and how different and cool, they’re trying to be, who knows, maybe in a couple years they’ll come out with their own substance that they’ll say, hey, this one thing is legal. So, who knows? At the rate they’re going and the things that are changing that wouldn’t surprise me either.
Question: Secondly, in regards to the Oakland A’s and obviously I know you started there and obviously played a little bit in Sacramento with the River Cats. I wanted to get your thoughts, Oakland’s been up for years and years possibly relocating, but seems to be gaining a lot of steam now with a look at Vegas and the upcoming votes with the city council there. Just your overall thoughts on Major League Baseball staying in Oakland.
MARK MULDER: We were supposed to have a new stadium in Oakland when I was there, and that’s a long time ago when I was there. So, there’s no chance there’s going to be a new stadium for the A’s anywhere in the Bay Area.
I don’t even see it – it’s not going to happen near San Jose. They come out with these beautiful plans – I get it. But with all the politics in that city, there’s zero chance they’re going to have something.
If they’re going to have a new stadium it’s going to be somewhere else. That’s unfortunate, because the history of that team and just everything that they’ve gone through with the stadium, trying to make it nice. I mean, it’s such a terrible location. Nobody wants to drive there. There’s a reason the Warriors moved. Nobody wants to go to that area for sporting events.
When I was still doing TV stuff for them four, five years ago, there were bad things happening in the parking lots after those games. And the crime that’s on BART right now, the public transit there, it’s a sad situation. It’s really unfortunate. That city is going to lose this team, and they’re going to end up somewhere else, and then it’s going to get worse from there.
It’s just sad. It just makes me sad to talk about it because I have such a love for that place. That’s where my career started. That’s where we had such success with some of those teams, that it’s just really unfortunate that at some point they’re going to be in a different state.