Last week, real Maine summer weather arrived, bringing warm, clear days and chilly evenings. This week, it was time for A.C.

Let’s go inside, switch on the television and watch our favorites, like “NCIS,” “Antiques Roadshow,” and, of course, “Jeopardy.” While “Jeopardy” is still humming along, despite the loss of Alex Trabek, the others are into reruns.

So, at our house, it was time to turn to Red Sox baseball. Admittedly, we had not kept up with the ins and outs of the Boston team. Some of us sort of lost interest when they traded Mookie Betts.

But as we watched the games, the “experts” were talking about how baseball’s top brass was going to crack down on pitchers using some sort of sticky substance to help them defeat batters. Heavens to Murgatroyd. Pitchers using a “pitching aid” to snap their sliders, curate their curves, and sear their splitters around the mighty hitters? What would the old-timers say?

Surely pitching saints like Whitey Ford, Gaylord Perry, Don Sutton and Joe Niekro would never use some gunk or gimmick to help them to a Cy Young award. Just for the record, If you believe that last sentence, I will give you a great deal on the swinging bridge over the Townsend Gut.

Hitters, like J.D. Martinez, the Red Sox slugger, complained that the pitchers were using “pitching aids” to increase the “spin rate” of the balls sent his way. That made them hard to hit.

After MLB honchos announced they would have umpires check pitchers to see if they were using something to help them fend off batters, Red Sox manager Alex Cora told the team to be careful and not evade the edict. It is no fun to be suspended for cheating, said the manager who was suspended last year for his participating in a cheating scandal when he was with the Houston club in 2017.

Pitchers, like Boston’s Garrett Richards, said some pitchers used the stuff to help them control the ball. He said it would be harder for them to pitch. And (sans goo) he was quickly knocked about in his next two starts and even hit three batters in the process.

Those of us who are sports fans know that cheating is part of the game. And we don’t like it.

After all, we want to believe sporting demigods like Ted Williams, Oscar Robertson, Jack Nicklaus and Babe Didrikson Zaharias got to heaven because of hard work, talent and a keen eye. We feel cheated when we find out that Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa padded their home run totals with help from steroids.

The U.S. Supreme court made the sports pages last week in a ruling that seemed to open the door to allow college athletes to seek payment for their services. The NCAA had argued that compensating athletes would tarnish sport as they were supposed to be amateurs.

Hmm? What would it do to college athletics if Duke, LSU and Ohio State University paid their kids to toil for their dear old alma mater?

They should compete for the pure love of sport? Right? Yet, isn’t college athletics a billion-dollar business involving sneakers and shirts and batting gloves, T.V. rights and ratings, Bowl Games, and March Madness? Were you surprised to find out the highest-paid public official in some states is the university football coach?

If you checked the record, you would find cheating seems to be taught by some sacred institutions. Can you remember payoffs to AAU basketball coaches and sex scandal coverups in football, gymnastics and wrestling? So isn’t it only fair to pay a star college athlete who risks their limb and potential professional sports future to play for dear old State U?

Hold that thought during the seventh inning stretch while I grab another lemonade and some chips and contemplate cheating.

On another subject, I want to offer a thank you to Southport Historical Society for inviting me to speak at their annual meeting. It was a treat to spend the evening with some lovely people who care a lot about their island.

And I learned something, too. Paul Zalucky, a retired state department official, mentioned that former CIA Director Gina Haspel once told him she had vacationed at Southport’s old Lawnmere resort.

You never know who you might run into on the Maine coast.