The Cut-throat World of Pro Sports

In game two of the World Series last night Fox highlighted the fact that Detroit Tigers pitcher Kenny Rogers had some brown substance on his hand. What was this substance? The world will probably never know. Did the substance give him some kind of unfair advantage? The answer, in my opinion, is a resounding NO!
In the first inning Rogers pitched a walk to Albert Pujols and allowed a single by Scott Rolen, and that was with the "smudge." After cleaning it off between innings he was able to pitch SIX hitless innings. Does that look like an unfair advantage? He pitched WORSE when he had the smudge.
Here is my theory, prior to the game Rogers was doing his pre-game warm up and was stretching out on the field. It had rained in Detroit, and there was a chance of more rain and snow during the game, therefore when he leaned down to do his stretches he braced himself against the ground and may have gotten a bit of mud on his hand. Its as simple as that, but instead of giving the guy the benefit of the doubt all these sports analysts cry foul and say that he was cheating in some way.
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In other sports related news; yesterday Seattle Seahawks Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck was injured when linebacker E.J. Henderson rolled into his knee. At the time, I thought nothing of it; it just seemed like a part of the game, something that happens when you play at the highest level. Then, this morning I was watching a show on ESPN called "Cold Pizza." The show is a lot like Sportscenter but is based more on the format of an early morning network news show. One of the segments that they do every morning is called First and 10 and features sports analysts Skip Bayless and Woody Paige. Generally I find myself disagreeing with Skip Bayless, and that was definitely the case this morning. According to Bayless, Henderson injured Hasselbeck on purpose and that this was a malicious action intended to injure the quarterback. Frankly, I don't think so. If you look at the video, Henderson begins to look downfield as Hasselbeck throws the ball, as he turns to look downfield he is hit from the side by a Seahawks lineman, momentum forces him to the ground where he tries to stop himself, in my opinion, from running into Hasselbeck. Unfortunately, his foot slips and he does roll into Hasselbeck's knee, but come on, there is no way he did that on purpose!