The Wall Street Journal (April 24) -- A day after he was caught smearing pine tar on his neck in a game against the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees pitcher Michael Pineda was suspended 10 games by Major League Baseball “for possessing a foreign substance on his person.” The incident reignited an old debate in baseball circles: Was Pineda gaining an unfair advantage by using the pine tar? Alan M. Nathan, a professor emeritus of physics at Illinois, has spent years studying the physics of baseball, weighs in.