Deadspin has photos of some brown substance on on Jake’s middle and ring fingers, and possibly his thumb.

I tell myself I’ll never be one of those hometown homers who allows his defense mechanisms to continue telling himself what he wants to hear.

Part of me thinks it’s dirt.  Honestly.  I’m having trouble deciding how much of that is just my desire for it to be true.  My heart wants to see dirt so badly, and the heart can take over the brain when it wants to.

The brain in me thinks we very well could be seeing pine tar.  Why else would only three of his five fingers be covered in dirt?  Positive steroid tests are blamed on a tainted dietary supplement, and pine tar is played off as dirt.  That’s the system.

Which brings me to my biggest disappointment: the response.

“I laughed, to be honest with you. Anybody that wants to check me, feel free. There’s nothing on my hands that’s not supposed to be. I thought it was funny that it was such a big deal. I’ve got no problems with anytime anybody needs to check me.

Dude.  Jake.  Dude.  You’re laughing at this?  I don’t care if it is harmless dirt, or A-Rod swatting a ball out of Arroyo’s glove.  After all this sport has gone through, cheating is not a fucking laughing matter.

Hearing that from Jake has brought me out of my attempt at rational analysis of my own analysis to the point of insane radio call-in ranting.  Ok, I take that back.  Not that far.  Maybe Union Tribune article comment idiocy.  That’s still pretty low.

This is a serious issue.  Attempting to play it off this way rubs me painfully in crazy places.  It makes Jake sound the opposite of innocent.  Even if it was just dirt.