Apparently the only way that umpires would check was if an opposing coach complained. Opposing coaches never complained because they knew their own players were doing it, too. The league stepping in insures there won’t be any fear of that sort of retaliation.
Also, a whole range of substances are technically illegal, so even if you were using something less egregious than the recently engineered stuff you could still be retaliated against for reporting.
Umpires routinely touch balls because they take the ones that hit the dirt. Surely they’d notice then, unless the ones that hit the dirt aren’t adulterated for some reason.
It would be super easy for the NYPD to give me tickets for jaywalking too, but they don’t.
The reason this was not enforced is because nobody cared and most people involved didn’t really consider it cheating, not because enforcement is difficult.
