Baseball fans react to MLB working with Dow Chemical to develop a sticky baseball: "So it’s ok when MLB does it but the players can’t"

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters on Tuesday that the league is working with the Dow Chemical Company to develop a ball coated with a sticky substance.

The league has been testing balls in the Double-A Southern League. The professional baseball league in Japan has been using a similar type of ball for several seasons.

MLB baseballs are currently rubbed with mud before they are used in a game to make them less slippery. However, the league has also been cracking down on pitchers using their own sticky substances to improve grip on the ball.

Five pitchers have received 10-game suspensions since the league began closely inspecting pitchers in June 2021. Three pitchers — Max Scherzer and Drew Smith of the New York Mets, and Domingo German of the New York Yankees — have been so punished this season.

Manfred said the development of a "sticky ball" would cut down on some MLB balls being grippier than others. He told reporters:

"We continue to work with the people at Dow Chemical on developing a tacky ball. It would literally eliminate all -- well, not all -- but many of the variables in the current process. It would come out of a sealed foil pouch at the ballpark. No individual mudding."

The balls currently being developed by Dow are all white, rather than still using colored stitching such as the ones tested in the minors. Manfred said there has been debate whether an all-white baseball is usable at the major league level.

"The baseball, if we get there with the Dow people, would be a pearl, right? A pure white baseball. I think if you take hitters and pitchers out front here and ask 'em what they think of a pure white baseball, you're going to find out that it's a pretty controversial topic.

"So not only do we have the science that we're continuing to work on but we're going to have to get over that sort of policy issue of: Is a pure white baseball a good thing?"

As with many ideas during the Manfred Era, there's still some tweaking to do. As Manfred himself noted:

"Like everything in baseball, when you inch towards a solution, you figure out another problem."

MLB baseballs getting sticky at some point

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred reacts during the first round of the 2023 MLB Draft

Not all minor league players have been enamored of the experimental sticky balls. However, MLB has been working on how to introduce a sticky ball in the majors at some point as the effort has been ongoing since the start of the 2022 season.