There are two outs in the top of the ninth inning.
The other team's catcher is now pitching.
You are batting with a 3-0 count.
The next pitch is casually soft-tossed (ho hum) at 47 mph, a glassy-eyed tourist loitering in the top of the strike zone.
Do you half-chuckle to yourself and decide to unload on it and crush it about 430 feet, well over the center field fence?
You're fucking-A right you do.
.@ymercedes73 hit a HR on a 47.1 MPH pitch from La Tortuga.
— MLB Stats (@MLBStats) May 18, 2021
That is the slowest tracked pitch hit for a HR (since tracking began in 2008). pic.twitter.com/T0ekXT5Fpn
It's just one more reason why La Russa is past his sell-by date and has no business managing in the major leagues. (Not knowing the rules of the game is another reason.) The next night, Mercedes had a pitch thrown behind his legs. La Russa supported the retaliation against one of his players: "I didn't have a problem with what the Twins did. . . . What did they do?"
If the "unwritten rules" were actual rules that people were supposed to respect, they would be "written". And they would not be vague and non-sensical. But they are nothing more than desperate face-saving measures invented by embarrassed players and managers to distract attention from their own inability to stop the other team from running, hitting, and scoring with abandon. Or, in the case of someone bunting during a potential no-hitter, for example, whining that the opposing team isn't laying down enough to help you win.
If the "unwritten rules" were actual rules that people were supposed to respect, they would be "written". And they would not be vague and non-sensical. But they are nothing more than desperate face-saving measures invented by embarrassed players and managers to distract attention from their own inability to stop the other team from running, hitting, and scoring with abandon. Or, in the case of someone bunting during a potential no-hitter, for example, whining that the opposing team isn't laying down enough to help you win.
If you don't want a guy to steal a base with a six-run lead in the eighth inning (or is it an eight-run lead in the sixth inning?), then hold the runner closer to the bag or have your catcher pay attention and throw him out. And if you don't want a batter to hammer a fat cookie la-la-la-ing its way to the plate at half-speed, then put a real fucking pitcher on the mound and/or don't groove pitches that 25% of the fans in the stands could probably pound for extra bases.
I agree that the unwritten rules are bullshit, but I don't agree that they are nonsense--they're an anthropologist's peek into a tiny macho culture, a peek that allows insights into other macho cultures in military, law enforcement, employment, and so on. And those cultures don't welcome anthropologists particularly, so I read Jason Turbow and The Baseball Codes with care and interest.
ReplyDeleteThat's fair. They do have value from that point. I may have initially used "silly". I do think it's interesting how different people think the offending line in the sand is in different places. A couple of books about Unwritten Rules exist, but I have not read any of them. I assume they touch on that point.
ReplyDeleteCalcaterra: "La Russa couldn't work harder to lose his clubhouse if he tried. Just a pathetic performance from a guy a decade past his sell-date. . . . If anyone else had failed to stand up for their own teammate in a controversy, La Russa would be pissed. La Russa, in contrast, basically invited the Twins to throw at Mercedes, and then nodded with approval when they did. . . . YermÃn Mercedes is one of the better stories in baseball so far this year and his manager is publicly ripping him, calling him "clueless" and apologizing to the opposition for him hitting a home run. And people in baseball wonder why the median fan age is like 55."
ReplyDeleteI used the phrase first, damn it!!