I posted this here because we often get a lot of very entertaining questions about baseball in this Forum.
I’m not a big fan of the “old timey” mentality, and while I disagree with some of what Schmidt says, his point is argued well in this piece.
The one thing he avoided is that of all the sports, with the possible exception of NASCAR, no other enforcement of the “unwritten rule” of not showing up a rival is more dangerous to the human life than a 90 mph fastball aimed at your head.
Followed by an impassioned defense of Pete Rose, one of the most flagrant, look-at-me players in baseball history?
So pretty much: Do it Right, Do it White.
Schmidt broke his finger fighting with Bruce Kison. His argument that “when I did bad stuff, it was OK, because it was for the right reasons,” seems to be stretching awfully hard to justify why it was fine for him to lose control but not when today’s players do so.
Schmidt’s column just rambles and rambles, and the criticism of Bautista while defending Rose is, as Blank Slate points out, absolutely risible.
Great player but doesn’t seem too swift. Grumpy old man is grumpy.
Honestly, WHY was it better when players didn’t celebrate home runs and pitchers threw at your head more? How is that preferable?
Here’s Schmidt’s 500th home run, a meaningless hit in April, but one he handled in a reserved and professional manner.
And that illustrates that different ways of celebrating send different messages. Derek Jeter doing the single clap after sliding into second on a double says “I’m happy.” Same with a fist pump or a Sammy Sosa hop out of the batters box. The bat flip and the super slow trot around the bases are more of a fuck you to the other team. Tricky.
Beanballs are way outside traditional protocols for retaliation in such circumstances.
Beanball, yes. Heater to the ribs, not so much.
It seems to me that professional athletes are the most sensitive and fragile creatures we have on this planet, baseball players being the most egregious example. A bat flip is cause for national consternation - it’s as if they’ve all taken a page out of the North Korean Book of Diplomacy, and take offense at the slightest of perceived slights. And the older and crustier they get, the more delicate these spring flowers become.
Let’s all take a look at one of my favorite plays - Game 2 of the 1977 ALCS. KC Royal Hal McRae takes the most devastating slide into NY Yankee Willie Randolph that I’ve ever seen. He’s 8 feet past 2nd base when he “slides”. Ask Mike Schmidt how he feels about that play, and I bet he defends it as “that’s the way you play baseball”. Fine - let’s take that at face value. McRae can potentially put Randolph’s future playing career in jeopardy (that shit can destroy a knee), and it’s baseball. Jose Bautista cranks a high heater in the 7th of the final game of the ALDS and displays some emotion - and it’s an insult to the pitcher, to the opposing team, to the game itself.
Subject someone to potential injury: That’s baseball.
Subject someone to some hurt feelings: Armageddon.
I enjoy the fact that baseball, of all the major sports is least susceptible to the look-at-me-look-at-me-look-at-me histrionics of athletes who managed to do something good.
If the little princesses of the sport (Bryce Harper et al) get their way and are able to act out scenes from Studio 54 Disco Dance Party every time they get an extra-base hit or strike someone out, baseball will be a turn-off too.
But they don’t. That’s the thing; people are saying things like “you can’t go nuts every time you hit a home run” in response to a state where in fact players do NOT go nuts every time they hit a home run. Jose Bautista doesn’t flip his bat every time he hits a home run. You’d think people would notice that, he hits a lot of them. He flipped his bat the one time he hit the biggest home run of his entire career.
The idea that baseball has some new problem here is one advanced only by grumpy old men. Baseball has always had hot dogs, bat tosses, arrogance and various other elements of competitiveness. It is especially bizarre, though, in this case, to see Schmidt criticizing a guy for being pumped up after hitting his biggest home run ever when
Schmidt is simultaneously defending Pete Rose, a guy who spiked the ball after a third out at first base in every single game, no matter the importance - something I have never seen any other player do - and in any case in other regards disgraced his team, his sport, and his reputation a thousand times more than a thousand Jose Bautistas could, and
Schmidt once broke his hand fighting a pitcher in July in a season when his team really needed their best player to not do stuff like that.
Baseball players have been saying “Today’s players are no good” literally since the days of Cap Anson, if not before.
Correct. And baseball always had pitchers that drilled guys in the small of the back for the perception of the above, and then batters that charged the mound when pitchers went too far inside, etc. In more recent years, that kind of on-field retribution has been looked down on and penalized, and so the advocates of a more restrained style of play have made their cases with words and in print. I’d think people would regard that as a good thing.
Given that the Schmidt fight you mention came after Bruce Kison deliberately plunked a teammate, ISTM it shows him acting in perfect accord with the traditional “code.” Not sure what your point is in bringing it up.
My point is that - and hey, opinions differ - punching a man in the face is perhaps a greater demonstration of arrogance and constitute a greater disruption to the game that disposing of your bat in an unorthodox manner.
If the previous way of doing things, where you threw fastballs at people and engaged in brawls (not that the odd brawl doesn’t break out now, but it’s not as common as it used to be) is superior to the modern way of doing things where players are flashier but engage in fewer beanballs and fistfights, I fully admit that superiority is lost on me. I would implore anyone with insight I do not possess to explain to me why a bat flip is worse than punching someone in the face.
I would further ask that someone explain to me how a man who purports to want to be taken seriously would praise Pete Rose while castigating Jose Bautista, who - to the best of my knowledge - has never been banned from baseball for betting on games involving his own team, been sent to prison for tax evasion, lied and manipulated people to a ludicrous degree, slandered decent and upstanding people, and generally proven himself beyond a shadow of a doubt to be the vilest sort of lowlife and an embarrassment to the institution of baseball.
I don’t care about Bautista.
I just like the idea that there is a sense of professional behavior among a lot of baseball players, and the likelihood that you will be ridiculed or face some sort of retribution for behaving like an ass.
The fact that a lot of current players concur takes it out of the realm of “grumpy old men”.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled end zone dances.
Blames the umpires for making the game softer, but puts a neck protector on his baseball cap.
From an article in USA Today (3/28) on Paul Goldschmidt of the Diamondbacks:
*"Asked if Goldschmidt was too humble, teammate David Peralta didn’t hesitate.
“Oh yeah, he is,” says Peralta. “Sometimes I tell him, ‘When you hit a home run, you need to do a little thing.’ He says, ‘No, I like to do the right thing,’ which is good.”
Says (hitting coach Mark) Grace: “His personality is just that. He doesn’t seek the limelight. What he seeks is greatness. What he seeks is a world championship."*
Obviously the 28-year-old Goldschmidt, one of the best hitters in the major leagues, is just a “grumpy old man” when it comes to celebratory self-promotion. :dubious:
It’s bizarre how players who have no problem at all breaking WRITTEN rules take UNWRITTEN rules very seriously.
My feeling is, if a pitcher doesn’t like watching a guy hot dogging after a homer, he should STOP SERVING UP GOPHER BALLS, rather than take out his frustrations on the next batter.
Meh. I don’t see how punching someone in the face is, ipso facto, “arrogant.” ISTM that depends on how and why you’re doing the punching. He was doing it because he perceived Kison was throwing beanballs at him and his teammates. That may be a strategically bad idea, but I don’t see how it’s “arrogant.” If anything I’d think
Nobody is saying that. But if the implication is that the increased batflips are somehow responsible for causing the reduction in fights, that seems a little ridiculous.
Again: In more recent years, that kind of on-field retribution has been looked down on and penalized, and so the advocates of a more restrained style of play have made their cases with words and in print. I’d think people would regard that as a good thing. Is it nor possible to prefer a game that has both less fighting and less taunting?
I don’t love the home run celebrations, but I get that it’s part of the game and mostly accepted now. I can live with that. However, it doesn’t seem to me that pitchers are afforded the same leniency with their celebrations. Eckersley, Papelbon, Fernando Rodney (all closers, for whatever it’s worth) have all taken some amount of criticism for getting over excited on the field after a strikeout or a save.
Back in 1969, the Cubs’ Ron Santo started doing heel clicks after wins. It was perceived by many opponents as obnoxious. But he didn’t stop doing it till the Cubs fell out of first place in early September.
It was my first year of following baseball. I can still recall the grownups discussing whether heel clicks were “a nice way to celebrate” or “an arrogant way to show up your opponent.” It’s been a long time, but seems like the Cubs fans went for the first, while the Cub-haters went for the second. 'Twas ever thus, I imagine…