Baseball players don't shake hands

I’ve played baseball since I was a kid and after every game in every league, even into adulthood, I recall the end of the game being marked by the tradition of both teams lining up to pass each other and shake hands and say “good game”. If you watch professional sports, you’ll notice that football, basketball and most others have a similar ending. So what happened to Major League Baseball? Suddenly when they turn pro, they have to leave the field after the game as if they’re late for a plane?

Pro baseball players have never shook hands after games, at least not in the 20th century.
The official rules state that players in uniform are not supposed to fraternize with one another.
Also baseball players usually head back to their dressing rooms through the dugouts. In other sports, the athletes have to walk off the court, field, rink, what have you, to get to their dressing rooms and they have to come in contact with their opponents.

So why is it then that you see them shake hands at the end of a series, say in the playoffs? Do they only shake hands with other players who are good enough to make the playoffs. (I cant remember if they shake hands at the end of a series in the regular season). If that above is true, thats a kind of pompous thing to do. Damn, then my Cubs wouldnt have shaken hands in damn near 10 years.


C3-24/7 “I’ve got the goods if you’ve got the cash; what you want fool?”

I doubt pro ballplayer ever shook hands, especially after a playoff game (try to imagine the Dodgers shaking hands with Bobby Thompson). I don’t recall any team of pro athletes shaking hands after a playoff. The winners celebrate; the losers slink off to the locker room.

You’ve got the question backwards. You should be asking “Why do little league players shake hands after a game?” Of course, the idea was to instill the feeling of sportsmanship. But the practice was born in little leagues, not major leagues.


“East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” – Marx

Read “Sundials” in the new issue of Aboriginal Science Fiction. www.sff.net/people/rothman

Maybe they dont shake hands because theyre scared of spreading coliform bacteria and are incouraging us to do the same :wink:

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Quite untrue. Hockey players line up for a formal handshake after the last game of any playoff series.

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Quote me the ‘official rule’ on this, please. You see them meet before games all the time behind batting cages, etc. They ‘fraternize’ at first base quite regularly.

Football players and basketball players don’t do it formally, but on an informal basis will mix on the field and shake hands with some of the opposition. Soccer players do this, also, and add the tradition of exchanging jerseys when the game is between teams that don’t normally compete in a league.

I was a member of the WORST soccer team in Montreal. We were the Hillcrest team, and I don’t think we ever won a single game.

Nonetheless, after each game we went through the ritual of filing past the other team and shaking hands, saying “Good Game!” Because you know what? It always WAS a good game, whether or not we won or even played very well. The point was, we were out there having fun and it was a blast.

I am not a sports expert. Heck, I sucked at soccer and I sucked at just about every sport I played. But I did always enjoy the good spirit. So I would like to know why it would be necessary for ANY sport to forego the ritual of thanking the other players.

Sport is competitive, but the “thanking” phase (to me) always conferred upon it a certain dignity.


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I was a member of the WORST soccer team in Montreal. We were the Hillcrest team, and I don’t think we ever won a single game.

Nonetheless, after each game we went through the ritual of filing past the other team and shaking hands, saying “Good Game!” Because you know what? It always WAS a good game, whether or not we won or even played very well. The point was, we were out there having fun and it was a blast.

I am not a sports expert. Heck, I sucked at soccer and I sucked at just about every sport I played. But I did always enjoy the good spirit. So I would like to know why it would be necessary for ANY sport to forego the ritual of thanking the other players.

Sport is competitive, but the “thanking” phase (to me) always conferred upon it a certain dignity.


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One of the reasons for shaking hands after a soccer game is to apologise for almost crippling your opposite number during the game. well, sort of.

It was originally a gentlemans game, and therefore, the players absorbes the rules of good conduct.

And your right, it is a good game

Why shake hands when you can grab their butts & spread coliform bacteria, as John mentioned?

The Stanley Cup, too? Aren’t the winners too busy skating around with it?


“East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” – Marx

Read “Sundials” in the new issue of Aboriginal Science Fiction. www.sff.net/people/rothman

The Stanley Cup finals, too. The don’t skate around with the trophy until after the presentation ceremony, done after the ritual handshake conga line.

"3.09 Players in uniform shall not address or mingle with spectators, nor sit in the stands before, during, or after a game. No manager, coach or player shall address any spectator before or during a game. Players of opposing teams shall not fraternize at any time while in uniform. "

The Official MLB Rules…
http://www.majorleaguebaseball.com/u/baseball/mlbcom/headquarters/rules3.htm

Thanks for backing me up with the correct wording. Rule 3.09 is enforced sporadically and it is much more difficult to do now since players change teams so much more frequently and more likely to encounter someone they have known in the past.
The baseball rule was probably put on the books to keep gamblers away from players (the part about not talking to people in the stands) and to give people the idea that the players weren’t conspiring to throw the game,

But back to the OP, pro baseball players just go back to the showers after the game and they are almost always located behind the dugout. There is no point in going out on to the field afterward.
In Little League, the kids are just using the field temporarily and they have to leave together to get back to their parents’ minivan for the trip to the pizza parlor.

In some areas, high schools have prohibited postgame handshakes because they sometimes devolved into violence.

This question has been asked of Atlanta’s Skip Carey (announcer to the Braves) and son of Harry Carey. His answer went something like this.

Professional baseball players play 162 games a season (not counting pre-season and post-season). Also, they usually play a series of 3 or 4 games with a team before moving on to another city.

Skip felt that it would really be insincere of the players to go and shake each others hands after each game and say “Good game”. Sure it might be a good game, but does it mean a lot if you do it every night?

Jeffery

As I read that rule, I am thinking of the well-publicized (by MLB!) pictures of Sammy and Mark hugging and congratulating each other during the 1998 season after they had each broken the old record. So much for following the rules… <lol>

The base coaches are supposed to stay in the boxes, but they don’t. Catchers don’t always stay in their box either.
Just like criminal and traffic laws, it’s all in the enforcement.

Soccer players are a team, represented as a whole by a captain. Before games, the captains of the two teams and team representatives, usually children, meet each other on the field where they also meet the referees and toss the coin. They usually shake hands, exchange team banners and pose for a quick picture with the children. Many times the two teams come out of the same tunnel to the field at the same time, side by side. It is only on the field where they are at odds. The fans are a different matter completely. They seem to hate each other.

The NFL team captains shake hands at the coin toss, too. After the game, they pray or talk to the TV people, but they usually shake hands.