Anyone familiar with the 1989 film “Major League” will remember the scene where a veteran pitcher, Eddie Harris (Chelcie Ross), explains to a young Ricky Vaughn (Charlie Sheen) that he uses everything from Crisco, Bardol, Vagisil and even occasionally snot to load up pitches, claiming any of the substances will add another two to three inches of drop on a curveball.

Obviously this is from a comedic film, yet the scene likely wasn’t too far from the truth.

Red Sox fans were in an uproar last week at events that took place around former Seattle Mariner and current New York Yankee hurler Michael Pineda. While pitching against the Boston Red Sox in the Bronx last Thursday night, television cameras caught something that Pineda likely didn’t want anyone to notice: a brown substance that looked an awful lot like pine tar on Pineda’s pitching hand.

In the game Pineda would throw six innings, allowing just one run and striking out seven batters in his first victory since 2011. He looked dominant in just his second start of the season after missing all of last year due to injury.

Major League Baseball does not allow pitchers to use any type of foreign substance on the ball while pitching.

In last week’s incident with Pineda, the hard throwing right hander was not using what appeared to be pine tar in order to add extra movement to his pitches. Instead, he was most likely utilizing the substance to provide better grip on the ball.

Early in the season when the weather is still a bit inconsistent, especially at night, it can be difficult to maintain consistent grip on the baseball in cooler temperatures. In the Yankees vs. Red Sox game last week, the temperature was hovering in the mid-50s, and while this isn’t all that cold in general terms, any baseball player knows that adjustments to certain aspects of a player’s game will have to be made due to the cold.

This becomes especially true for a pitcher whose fastball is flirting with 97 mile per hour velocities. Pineda’s hard throwing style would become extremely dangerous if he were not able to grip the fastball correctly. This is because of the increase in likelihood of a wild pitch getting away from him and possibly hitting a player in the head, or anywhere for that matter.

It seems as if certain members of the Boston Red Sox expressed similar sentiments after they heard of the alleged illegal actions Pineda was employing to increase his grip.

Veteran slugger David Ortiz was one of the first to comment on the situation.

“Everybody uses pine tar,” Ortiz said, according to the Daily News. “It’s no big deal.”

Other members of the Red Sox were equally fine with the situation, although some mentioned that Pineda could have been a little more covert about the process.

“With the cold weather, you’re looking to get a grip,” Red Sox manager John Farrell said. “I can’t say it’s uncommon, that guys would look to create a little bit of a grip. Typically, you’re not trying to be as blatant.”

Red Sox pitcher Chris Capuano reiterated Farrell’s point. “You’ve got to have a grip on the baseball and know where it’s going,” Capuano said. “I just think you don’t want to flaunt it.”

It appears the people who voiced the biggest opposition to Pineda allegedly using pine tar were the fans who felt that Pineda cheated in his dominant victory over Boston. But in the end, it appears the men who were actually playing against him were not all that worried about it, and likely appreciated that the hard throwing Pineda was proactively doing something to make sure he wasn’t missing wild because of a lack of grip.

Using pine tar when it is chilly out is an effective way to insure a pitcher’s command, and it is an unwritten rule of the game that players will utilize certain rule-bending strategies to make sure they aren’t wild. As a fan it is easy to feel cheated in a situation like this, but everyone needs to remember that there are always two sides to every coin, and sometimes it makes more sense to let some things slide so a player can live to play another day.