What reportedly was on Kenny Rogers' hand was a clump of dirt, stuck to his skin near his thumb. The Tigers' left-hander said he was unaware of it until he returned to the dugout after the first inning, and he washed it off before he took the mound for the second. What seems even stranger than Rogers being unaware of a clump of dirt near his thumb while pitching is what umpiring supervisor Steve Palermo said took place on the field. Palermo's take was that home-plate umpire Alfonso Marquez asked Rogers to wash his hands, though Rogers said Marquez's only request was to pick up the pace on the mound. It would seem odd that an umpire would ask a player to remove potential evidence against him without checking out what the evidence was, and it seems more likely that Roger was acting own after leaving the mound because St. Louis manager Tony La Russa had come out to talk with crew chief Randy Marsh about the movement of some of his pitches. What I saw didn't look all that much like dirt. It had a yellowish hue on my TV. What Rogers did from the second inning on quieted La Russa, though it did little to diminish the speculation by writers. After all, the smudge on Rogers' hand came in the midst of a 23-inning scoreless streak in the postseason. Rogers' success may be nothing more than being on his game, but a trip to the sink before the umpires were aware or acted, has sparked suspicions about something that no longer can be proved. La Russa wouldn't be drawn into media speculation after the game, playing down any controversy while some other Cardinals seemed less pleased about what happened. After Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan noted that an opposing team has to request a search of a pitcher, he was asked why that didn't happen. "You'll have to ask Tony," Duncan responded. Do you believe it was simply a clump of dirt? "Do I have to answer that?" Duncan replied.