He told it was called sticky shed syndrome and the solution to the problem would sound unbelievable. I ended up contacting the Quantegy Corporation. Quantegy made the tape for Ampex and now makes the same tape under its own name. I spoke to Steve Smith for almost two hours. Here is a brief synopsis of his explanation.
Recording tape is made of a polyester backing.
During the 80's a specific molecular weight was chosen for the binder that the engineers felt would yield the best product. After a few years a problem began to surface, though. Tapes that had been archived in places that had any significant humidity showed this weird stickiness that rendered them unplayable. An explanation was needed. This was dubbed sticky shed syndrome and is explained in the following manner.