Dodgers: Max Muncy Finds Himself in Awkward Position Following Recent World Series Ruling
Over the weekend, there was a bit of a hubbub in the World Series. The cause of the minor uproar? Well, it seems that Astros catcher Martin Maldonado had used a bat Albert Pujols gave him.
Why is that a problem? Pujols' bats are technically illegal in the big leagues, with a barrel size that was banned in 2010. The reasons for the ban were related to safety, not performance, and as with most such rules, players already using those bats were allowed to continue using them the rest of their careers.
It's not uncommon for MLB to grandfather in exceptions to new safety rules. Burleigh Grimes legally threw a spitball for years after it was banned. Tim Raines wore a batting helmet without an ear flap for nearly two decades after the 1983 rule change requiring helmets to have an ear flap. The list goes on.
If Maldonado had borrowed Raines' helmet, everyone would have noticed the lack of ear flaps and immediately known it wasn't legal. The bat was a much more subtle thing, though, so no one was really aware until after the fact.
Because it's the Astros and a rules violation, a lot of Dodger fans unwisely pounced on Maldonado's "cheating." Why was it unwise? Well, because any Dodger fan with much of a memory at all should have remembered Albert's Los Angeles teammates occasionally using his bats last season.
There were articles written about and TV segments devoted to Justin Turner and Max Muncy using Pujols' bat in 2021. (JT's career started in 2009, so he might have been allowed to use it, but I'm not sure how the legalities of grandfathering work.)
Someone at the time — Pujols himself, probably, but others too — should have been aware that Pujols was using bats that weren't legal for others to use. Someone clearly knew the rule, as it was spotted in the World Series pretty easily.
This was always a case of Maldonado unknowingly breaking a rule that has nothing to do with performance, just as it was with Muncy and Turner. The Astros did plenty of proven, documented cheating — we don't need to grasp at straws every time something tiny comes up.
