 It's Padres Mets in an elimination game. The first inning, Musgrove throws that pitch, catcher discards the ball because they hit the dirt, and Buck Sherwalters says, let me see that ball. I'm gonna fill that ball up. I'm gonna do a little science experiment. I'm watching you. I've got your balls in my hand. I'm touching these. Now in the sixth inning, after shutting down the Mets for five innings and looking great, Musgrove is getting ready to pitch. Let me keep going, doing my thing, but wait, what's the, what's going, oh, Buck Sherwalters running on the field. He's gonna tell the ump, hey, you gotta check this guy. I think he's cheating. And here's why. Without getting into a lot of things, you know, the spin rates and different things that I'm sure you're all aware of, you know, when you see something that jumps out, I get a lot of information that dug out. Some pretty obvious reasons why it was, why it was necessary. One of those obvious reasons being that shiny ear. That ear's too shiny. There's something on that ear. Something foreign. It looks weird. Also, the spin rate, like he said, every pitch ticked up. His curve ball and his slider were at 2,900. And over the course of the season, they're at 2,700. Every pitch was up. Look, every pitch up, based on his average spin rate, is what makes the pitches really efficient. But he was throwing faster and with miles per hour comes more spin. But I was like, what are you guys talking about? These guys laughing at him. Pfft. Yeah, they're gonna make him check on me. Oh man. And this is a little suspicious. After saying that, he rubs his ear with his arm. That's a little suspicious, Joe. And then he bounces the ball around, makes himself look good, looks catchable. We're good. We're good. Don't worry about it. Bo Mel, his manager's gonna walk out. Like, what are you guys doing? They're like, well, they want us to check on him because his ear's super shiny. And he says some spin rate stuff. And he's like, yeah, check on me. Sure, yeah, how about it? Take my glove. And then his glove gets cheered and look at this little smirk. You fools. You idiots. My glove's fine. And then he says, I'm gonna have to touch you too. Is that all right? He's like, yeah, how about it? Grabs his ear, puts his fingers together, and then goes all in on this ear, man. Oh, man, all in on the ear. And a little, nice little love tap on the side. Man, he's looking. I'm like, what are you doing, dude? This is the same ump that had to touch shirts or sweaty hair. These, bye, goodbye. Oh, my God, they're gonna kick him out. No, they cleared him. You fools. And Bo Mel says, you gotta check his guys too. You better check his guys too. And, man, he looks at his old manager buck. And he's like, you fool. And buck's like, whew whew whew whew whew whew. Really? Really buck? And buck's like, oh, no, no, no, no. They told me up top to do it. Now, Musgrove into sixth inning. He goes, strike one, strike two, ground out. I'll cover it, no problem. Next batter, strike one, strike two, strike three. You're fucking out. Buck's like, ooh, good game. We got a good game. Hope we come back. Nothing else going on. Next batter, he's out. Fan yells at Soto. Soto looks at him like, what? I got the ball. He looks at the dugout, fucking asshole. Walks off the mound feeling good. Got checked on. Freed, ears are shining. They look beautiful. He's like, you like them? You like my ears? They can hear you too. And he's like, yeah, keep that shit up. Let's go. Now, there's two reasons why I don't think he was cheating. One, that ump touches ear all over. Came out of it and said, this ain't sticky. Two, I watched every second he was on screen the whole game up until that sixth inning. And he never once touched his ear. And right there, a foul ball, he gets the new ball. That's when you would touch it. After a foul ball, you get the new ball. You got muddied up. No ear. That would be when he would touch it. And yeah, he's just never touching his ear. Now, maybe your ear was really cold and you put some Vaseline on it. That's not going to help you. That would help if you were throwing a spitball. ESPN wanted you to think about it. McCutcheon said, you know, maybe he's got red hot on his ears. Given that burning sensation, wake him up a little bit. Some pitchers do that. I mean, I get a do. They're on their last leg. They're desperate. They're going everything they can to get me out of the game at that point. I mean, it is what it is.