Tag: Unwritten Rules

Fans crushed ex-MLB player Jeff Frye after he called out Manny Ramirez’s son for celebrating a HR

He REALLY claimed Manny Ramirez never admired home runs …

While it certainly seems like MLB has made progress to embrace the personality of its players, there will always be people out there who want baseball players to act like emotionless robots.

And oh man, former MLB player Jeff Frye went to some wild lengths to make that argument this week.

Manny Ramirez’s son, Lucas, had himself a weekend to remember at the plate in the 2023 World Wood Bat Association (WWBA) tournament in Georgia where he hit a walk-off home run to send his travel team to the championship game. For a high school player, it’s a huge moment. And you better believe that Lucas — a Tennessee commit — had every right to celebrate the walk-off shot.

Yet, Frye saw footage of Lucas rounding the bases and thought the home run celebration was worth blasting the young player over. On top of that, Frye — who is also an MLBPA agent — argued that Lucas’ father would never do that.

Again, Lucas’ father is Manny Ramirez. The same Manny Ramirez who has an entire montage of admiring home runs.

It’s one thing to have a problem with bat flips. It’s another to completely rewrite history while criticizing a youth baseball player. It was a massive home run for Lucas, and baseball needs more of that enthusiasm.

Fans honestly couldn’t believe that Frye managed to come up with such a terrible take.

Madison Bumgarner got in the weirdest shouting match with Willson Contreras over a hard swing

Bumgarner was at it again.

In the current generation of Major League Baseball, there are few players out there who hate fun and personality more than Madison Bumgarner. The slightest hint of showboating will send Bumgarner off on a tirade — it’s been that way for much of his career.

But now, Bumgarner is getting mad at opponents for trying too hard for his liking. At least it sure seemed that way on Wednesday.

During the third inning of the Diamondbacks’ game against the Cardinals, Bumgarner did not appreciate a hard swing foul and post-swing scream from Willson Contreras. Like, all Contreras did was swing hard and make a noise. Pitchers — like Max Scherzer — grunt and scream when they pitch all the time. Bumgarner oddly wouldn’t tolerate that from Contreras.

The Cardinals broadcast picked up Bumgarner saying, “Shut the (expletive) up, you (expletive), (expletive) you.”

And you can understand how Contreras took issue with that. Bumgarner was out there throwing a tantrum over nothing. Contreras would end up walking in the at-bat (with a bat flip) and scoring in the inning.

Fans also had thoughts on Bumgarner’s antics.

The Astros had a brilliant answer to the Mariners hitting Jose Altuve on the first pitch

Now, THAT is how you respond.

Earlier this season, the Seattle Mariners were involved in the biggest baseball brawl we’ve seen in years. And on Sunday, they were fortunate to avoid a similar scene in Houston.

Mariners All-Star rookie outfielder Julio Rodriguez was placed on the 10-day Injured List after he was hit on the right hand by a pitch mid-swing in Saturday’s game. Though X-rays were negative and the pitch clearly wasn’t intentional, the Mariners didn’t exactly take a subtle approach to retribution in Sunday’s game.

With George Kirby on the mound for Seattle, Astros star Jose Altuve was hit up high with a 95 mph fastball on the very first pitch Houston saw in the game.

Altuve went down for a few seconds before returning to his feet, nodding that he was OK. It certainly appeared to be retaliation for Rodriguez’s injury, and Yuli Gurriel avoided a high-and-tight pitch the following at-bat.

The game easily could have gotten out of hand at that point, but the Astros instead used the free baserunner to their advantage. Later in the inning, Altuve would score on a perfectly executed double steal of home.

MLB fans had plenty of thoughts on the whole sequence as well.

Victor Robles had the perfect response after Madison Bumgarner called him a ‘clown’ for admiring HR

Well played, Victor.

It’s difficult to find a current Major League player who polices baseball’s unwritten rules quite like Diamondbacks pitcher Madison Bumgarner. All it takes is one bat flip or a player staring at a home run for a few extra seconds to have Bumgarner fuming.

Max Muncy knows all too well what it’s like to have Bumgarner crying foul about home run etiquette. This weekend, it was Victor Robles’ turn to deal with Bumgarner’s complaints. But hey, at least Robles had fun with the whole ordeal.

During Saturday’s game, Robles hit an eighth-inning home run off of Bumgarner with the Nationals down six runs. And while it’s often silly to see a player celebrate while losing big, it’s been a rough year for Robles and the Nationals — he’s allowed to admire a home run if he wants.

Bumgarner felt differently because of course he did. After the game, which Arizona won 7-2, Bumgarner called Robles a “clown” for celebrating the homer like he was Barry Bonds. Obviously, Bumgarner could have avoided the situation by simply not giving up a home run to Victor Robles. If you don’t like the celebration, don’t give up the homer.

Robles, who pointed out the hypocrisy of Bumgarner’s tendency to celebrate his own big strikeouts, had an additional response for Sunday’s game. He was seen in the Nationals dugout wearing a clown nose.

Well played, Victor.

Bumgarner should probably stop worrying about how other players celebrate, but he’s never been one to let those things go. MLB fans did love how Robles handled the situation, though.

The Padres were so salty about the Giants stealing bases and bunting with a big lead

The unwritten rules need to go away.

Baseball is a great game, but at the same time, no sport gets in its own way more than baseball. We saw exactly why during Tuesday’s game between the San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants.

The Giants had already built a nine-run lead in the second inning. It was a huge deficit for San Diego, sure, but there was still plenty of time for the Padres to theoretically chip away at the lead and make a game out of it. The Padres, instead, were too busy enforcing baseball’s unwritten rules for blowout etiquette.

In that second inning, the Padres were upset when Steven Duggar stole second with a nine-run lead. Padres first baseman Eric Hosmer called Duggar out about it, telling him he has to be “little bit smarter in that situation.”

The Padres also threw a little tantrum when Mauricio Dubon bunted in the sixth inning for a single with the Giants up nine runs.

Giants manager Gabe Kapler appeared to have a word with Dubon in the dugout, but after the game, Kapler stood by his player and refused to throw him under the bus.

But it’s tough to get over how salty the Padres were about all of that. If you’re upset about a player stealing a base with a big lead in the second inning, then why even continue the game? Just forfeit and move on to the next day because Hosmer essentially admitted that the Padres had already given up on that game.

You may also remember how upset Tony La Russa got last season with his own player, Yermin Mercedes, when Mercedes hit a 3-0 home run late in a blowout. As lame as that controversy was, it also showed how flawed these unwritten rules can be. You’re not allowed to hit home runs with a big lead. You’re not allowed to bunt with a big lead. Then, what are you allowed to do? There’s not much middle ground.

If teams don’t want to compete for nine innings then MLB should have a mercy rule because, as Kapler explained, the Giants wanted to eat into the Padres bullpen. They’re trying to win multiple games. They had something to play for even with the big lead. His team shouldn’t need to take the Padres’ feelings into account just because the Padres decided they were going to stop trying by the second inning.

MLB fans seemed tired of the unwritten rules too.

Tony La Russa had a predictably lame response to Yermin Mercedes’ 3-0 home run in blowout

We all saw that one coming.

A seemingly unassuming blowout between the White Sox and Twins suddenly became a focal point of discussion around MLB on Monday when Chicago rookie designated hitter Yermin Mercedes launched a 3-0 home run off a 47 mph pitch from Twins position player Willians Astudillo.

There was some immediate reaction — one echoed by the Twins broadcast — that Mercedes’ decision to swing at a 3-0 pitch in an 11-run game was bad form and a violation of MLB’s unwritten rules.

Unfortunately for Mercedes, the young, exciting White Sox are managed by one of the staunchest defenders of baseball’s archaic unwritten rules: Tony La Russa. And, well, La Russa didn’t exactly take his player’s side in the mini-controversy.

La Russa said Tuesday that Mercedes made a mistake and that he apologized to the Twins for the perceived poor sportsmanship and lack of respect. And, sure, La Russa may have had a point if he was talking about some Little League or men’s league game. But this is professional baseball. Stats matter.

Just looking at it from Mercedes’ perspective, he’s a 28-year-old rookie on a rookie contract. Every home run could prove valuable when it comes to potential arbitration hearings. So, if the Twins want to throw a position player with sub-50 mph stuff, they can’t get mad when a fellow professional baseball player hits one of those pitches 429 feet the other way. That’s just how it works.

It’s a bit disappointing to see a manager ignore that context and throw his own player under the bus. But that sort of thing is expected from La Russa. We all saw it coming.

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OK. Fine. Trevor Bauer made a good point about not beaning batters after they celebrate.

Bauer explained why he was ok with Fernando Tatis Jr.’s showmanship after a home run.

Cue up that old Clickhole headline. The most unlikable pitcher in Major League Baseball said something that made a lot of sense and we should all just acknowledge it.

No, you don’t have to change your overall opinion of Trevor Bauer. He enjoys being toxic. He wants to stir things up for the sake of stirring things up, while simultaneously pretending he’s fearlessly speaking some difficult truth. He’s a troll. He’s deeply unlikeable.

But when it comes to the idea that pitchers should retaliate against batters who celebrate home runs … well, he’s on the right side of it.

Our Mary Clarke brought to you the tale of Fernando Tatis Jr. going deep on Bauer last night and absolutely owning him afterward. The shenanigans continued through the game.

Afterword, Bauer …. was reasonable?

Note about Mr. Braden’s note in the Tweet above: It’s OK if your “personal preference” tells you that you don’t like a person who has questioned whether humans contribute to climate change or where Barack Obama was born. That’s reasonable. Judging people by what they do and say is how it’s supposed to work, actually.

But Bauer does have a solid view on the events of last night. It starts around the :43 mark. Here’s the heart of it:

“I like it. I think that pitchers who have that done to them and react by throwing at people or you know getting upset and hitting people or whatever, I think it’s pretty soft. If you give up a homer, a guy should celebrate it. It’s hard to hit in the big leagues. I’m all for it and I think it’s important that the game moves in that direction and we stop throwing at people because they celebrated having some success on the field.”

Bauer went on to describe his back and forth with Eric Hosmer, wherein they traded “sword celebrations” after individual successes, and explained that he thinks that’s all part of competition and should be embraced.

And, well, yes.

Baseball’s stodgy adherence to some unspoken code definitely makes the game more difficult to relate to. Because as Bauer notes, it IS incredibly difficult. Of course players should celebrate. Makes it feel more human.

About this, Bauer has a point.

About many other things, he’s just talking to rile.

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Nick Castellanos dared to have fun playing baseball and got suspended from playing baseball

Just stop, MLB.

That Major League Baseball is detrimentally humorless does not need to be stated. The sport in general fumbles opportunity after opportunity to market its stars and broaden the game’s appeal to young fans who have a plethora of options of things to care about.

Baseball constantly tamps down individual displays of triumph in honor of some mystical “code.” This same set of unwritten rules, though, allows for pitchers to throw a baseball at somebody as retribution. We’ve talked about the silliness of it all a lot (seriously, take a look at all the relevant links in this post from Ted Berg), and yet we’re not even a week into the new season before needing to address it again.

MLB has suspended Reds outfield Nick Castellanos two games for his “aggressive actions and for instigating a benches-clearing incident” between his team and the Cardinals Saturday afternoon.

Here’s the offensive aggressiveness, in case you need to review:

And this is the heated moment that led to it. For what it’s worth, Cardinals players said this pitch mistakenly got away and was not meant to hit Castellanos:

Castellanos has opted to appeal the suspension, so he won’t serve it until he has made his case.

What’s that discussion even sound like, though? Castellanos celebrated scoring a run, which is the mechanism by which you win baseball games, and happened to be near the guy who’d just beaned him with a 92-mile-per-hour fastball in the ribs. It led to a kerfuffle.

There was some suggestion that Castellanos had been ejected for this incident because it violated MLB COVID-19 protocols that sought to limit players coming near each other for the sake of arguing or fighting. But if that’s the case the game probably should have just been called off after the scrum, no?

Anyway, this all remains weird and counter-productive when you consider it through the lens of “How do we get people to care about baseball?” Allowing players to show the sort of emotion that is typical in competitive moments should be part of that answer! Fans don’t want genteel sportsmanship, they want to see that the players care.

Yeah, that’s pretty much it. This sort of thing happens 25 times per NFL game.

By all means players should respect each other — up to and including not pegging them with a baseball — but celebrating the ticks and tocks of a hard-fought game is fine.

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The Marlins had the lamest answer to Ronald Acuña Jr.’s monster leadoff home run

Come. On.

This MLB postseason has seen some truly entertaining reactions to home runs. There was Fernando Tatis Jr.’s fantastic bat flip. There was the Braves’ Marcell Ozuna taking a fake selfie 45 feet down the first-base line.

But don’t celebrate the demise of baseball’s antiquated unwritten rules just yet. They appeared to be well on display during Game 1 of the National League Division Series between the Braves and Marlins.

The controversy started when the Braves’ Ronald Acuña Jr. led off the game with a massive, opposite-field home run off the second deck. Acuña knew it was a home run immediately, and he had just about the coolest reaction to it: Watching the ball leave the park and tossing his bat.

Another look at the celebration:

In the third inning, the Marlins broke ahead for a 4-1 lead. And when Acuña stepped to the plate, he was hit by a 98 mph fastball on the backside. He was not happy and understandably so.

While, situationally, it would make little sense for Sandy Alcantara to hit Acuña intentionally with Freddie Freeman and Marcell Ozuna due up, the Marlins and Acuña have a history. So, it’s tough to give them the benefit of the doubt.

The umpiring crew clearly thought something was amiss too and issued warnings to both dugouts.

The moment seemed to fire up the Braves as they scored two runs in the inning to cut the deficit to one. Intentional or not, the unwritten rules remain incredibly lame. Let the players have fun.

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