Baseball takes itself a little too seriously sometimes.
Of all the major sports, it’s the one where the unwritten rules (and there’s about 100 of them) cause benches to clear, players to be ejected and logic to sometimes be thrown out the window.
Take last Wednesday night’s Brewers-Braves game for example. Milwaukee’s Carlos Gomez hits a solo home run and admired it a little too long for the Braves’ liking. I swear catcher Brian McCann did his best Crash Davis impersonation and yelled, “Run dummy!”
Now, why is baseball so sacred that a player can’t do a little trash talking with his body language? Let him watch it for a second. You have a problem with it? Get him out. Maybe don’t throw a meatball down the middle of the plate. But oh no, let’s clear the benches because an opponent “showed you up.”
Give me a break. By the way, the Braves should be more upset at the thousands of fans who came as empty seats Wednesday.
Another (non) favorite of mine took place on Tuesday night in St. Louis, when former Aggie great Michael Wacha was throwing a no-hitter for the Cardinals. In the top of the sixth inning with St. Louis up, 2-0, Denard Span layed down a bunt (which he does often for hits, I might add) and booked it down the line. He was thrown out but the crowd booed the attempt to get on base. Span was also booed when he came to the plate in the ninth.
Excuse me? It’s the sixth inning of a two-run game. If he gets on, the tying run comes to the plate, and the mental part of the contest has completely changed. How in the world can some not understand that? The object of the game is to win or lose, not “let’s all work together to make sure this guy gets a no-hitter.”
Last week, the Diamondbacks were hosting the Dodgers, who were on the verge of clinching the NL West. Arizona requested that the Dodgers refrain from celebrating on their field if they clinched that evening.
LA clinched and complied with the request. The team headed off the field into the right field swimming pool and celebrated with glee.
The D-Backs were not amused. Come on, guys. I think they should tip their hat for originality in sticking to the request.
Again, you want them not to celebrate on your field – beat ‘em.
There are so many other unwritten rules of baseball (ones that I honestly probably have never heard of), we’d need four articles just to list them here. I think this is more proof that the baseball season is too long. Give these guys some more down time to worry about other things. Anything but create unneeded politics in a game played on a field.
Too much time around the ballpark to moan and complain about “sportsmanship” in the dugout and clubhouse. Just play ball. Chop off April and September and I would be perfectly happy.
Come to think of it, this year’s Rangers probably would like to chop off September as well.
