Breaking the code
There is a universal truth that weaves itself through every season of baseball: someone is going to break an unwritten rule.
Last year’s big complaint was bat flips and pimping home runs: You’re not supposed to celebrate a home run, because it shows up the pitcher and hurts his feelings. One of my favorite exchanges was between well-known crybaby Madison Bumgarner and Max Muncy, when Muncy told Bumgarner if he wanted the ball back to “go get it out of the ocean.” Sox fans are also familiar with the beef between Tim Anderson and all of the Kansas City Royals that resulted from his STICK TALK bat flip on Brad Keller (shown from all angles below just in case you need to watch it again):
We saw a lot of think pieces and talking heads complaining about player celebrations and bat flips, which is a whole lot of energy used to counter MLB’s marketing slogan of 2019 “Let the Kids Play.”
As the 2020 season moved along, it felt like the only big controversy was various teams' COVID outbreaks, and I didn’t think anything of the fact that we hadn’t heard anything about unwritten rules this year. Quite frankly, a lot of my brain is being occupied by the dumpster fire of 2020. And then, Fernando Tatís Jr. broke an unwritten rule.
I like to think I’m pretty up-to-date on a lot of the unwritten rules of baseball: Don’t bat flip, don’t bunt to break up a no-hitter, don’t stand near home plate when the pitcher is warming up, don’t speak to a pitcher who's throwing a no-hitter (though that feels more like a superstitious thing). Some of these read like baseball's Miss Manners. Some of these unwritten rule breaks can result in beanball wars that lead to bench-clearing shoving matches.
So imagine my surprise when I woke up to today's hot, simmering beef.
As recently as last week, baseball writers have been touting Tatís Jr. as an MVP candidate. He was recently named the National League player of the week. ESPN Cover Story just did a whole article about whether he could become the face of the game, and how much fun he is to watch. White Sox fans have been regularly lamenting the trade that took him to San Diego and left us with James Shields.
What unwritten rule did Tatís Jr. break? Well, he hit a grand slam. His first grand slam. And when he should have been celebrating the fact that he hit a grand slam, because hitting a grand slam is a really hard thing to do that involves a lot of components to align just right, he was being scolded by both his manager (Jayce Tingler) and Texas Rangers manager Chris Woodward.
The Padres are currently visiting Arlington to play the Rangers in the new big, shiny, and empty Globe Life Park. Neither team is having a particularly great season, the Rangers currently sitting at third in the AL West at 10-11 and the Padres third in the NL West at 12-12. The Rangers were in the middle of a particularly painful outing that had them down, 10-3, in the eighth. Tatís Jr. had a 3-0 count and blasted a poorly-placed pitch by Juan Nicasio straight into the empty seats for his second home run of the game.
The Rangers replaced Nicasio with Ian Gibaut — who promptly threw a 93 mph fastball behind Manny Machado. The umpires conferenced on the incident, but there were no warnings or ejections. (Side note: Can we give the umpires headsets, like in football?). The band played on, and the Padres won 14-4. The real excitement came in the postgame interviews.
Apparently, Tatís Jr. missed a take sign on the 3-0 pitch, which happens (especially with young players). I get being annoyed about it in private — but he hit a GRAND SLAM. This drew the ire of Tingler, who initially said:
"He’s young, a free spirit and focused and all those things ...That’s the last thing that we’ll ever take away. It’s a learning opportunity, and that’s it. He’ll grow from it."
Bland words from the coach about missing a sign until ...
"Just so you know, a lot of our guys have green light 3-0. But in this game in particular, we had a little bit of a comfortable lead. We’re not trying to run up the score or anything like that."
I'm sorry, what? A coach not trying to run up the score? A seven-run lead isn't insurmountable. Yeah, it would require a pretty big breakdown of the Padres defense, but it could still happen (it could happen in the ninth inning, for all we know — the possibilities are endless), and would be incredibly unusual.
But the comment about not trying to run up the score is strange. Baseball doesn't have slaughter rule. Baseball does, apparently, have an unwritten rule stating something to the effect of thou shalt not swing on a 3-0 count when your team has a lead. It's wedged in there next to something about not stealing bases when your team is ahead (lol, OK). It's pretty gross optics for your manager to not have your back in any situation, Tingler.
Chris Woodward has this to say:
"There's a lot of unwritten rules that are constantly being challenged in today's game. I didn't like it, personally ... You're up by seven in the eighth inning; it's typically not a good time to swing 3-0. It's kind of the way we were all raised in the game. But, like I said, the norms are being challenged on a daily basis. So just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not right. I don’t think we liked it as a group."
I get Woodward is coming from in the sense of "we lost the game, that sucks." But the fact that both managers are crying about unwritten rules is ridiculous, especially the unwritten rule around scoring runs. What he should have said was "I'm mad the opposing team tried hard. Maybe they should go easier on us next time. Or make it easier for us to win."
MLB Network really tried to "both sides" this and came off as ridiculous:
It's safe to say that the unwritten rules of baseball, and getting upset about the unwritten rules of baseball, is ridiculous. Some of these listed on Wikipedia read more like an Emily Post article and make pitchers sound like giant babies ("thous" and "thines" added by me):
- Thou shalt not spend your time admiring a home run you hit.
- Thou shalt not swing at the first pitch of the at-bat if the pitcher has allowed back-to-back home runs.
- Thou shalt not work the count if your team is winning or losing by a significant amount.
- Thou shalt not rub the spot where you were hit by a pitch.
- Thou shalt not walk in front of a catcher or umpire when walking to the batter's box.
- Thou shalt not assist a member of the opposing team.
- Thy pitcher who is removed from the game in the middle of an inning must stay in thine dugout until the end of the inning.
- Thy pitcher should not indicate displeasure if one of thine fielders commits an error.
Wikipedia did lead me to an unwritten rule no longer followed: the color line. There is nothing you can point to that is more glaringly obvious that unwritten rules are nonsense than baseball's color line. MLB may have celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues this weekend, but as of 2016, just 6.7% of players were black, which is not great. Baseball is expensive for a lot of kids, and access to it is slipping away from urban centers. But that's a discussion for another time.
The unwritten rules of baseball are trash, and most importantly they're exclusive. They exist as a way to dictate the behavior of players and force them into these small boxes of manners and politeness decided by the stuffy old guard. Bat flips are prevalent across the KBO and the Dominican League. I scoured the internet and struggled to come up with other league's unwritten rules (the KBO does have an unwritten rule about a young pitcher unintentionally hitting a veteran batter having to take off their hat and bow to show remorse, which is so charming I can't be mad about it).
What it comes down to is letting the kids play ... but play the way that we want you to. The way that we, the gatekeepers of baseball, say is OK.
The old guard of MLB needs to go. Bat flips are cool, and grand slams are awesome. Of course, they suck when they happen against your team, but you're professionals — play better. Throw better pitches, strike people out. Hit the grand slam next time, do the bat flip right back at them. That's better than ruining a young player's first grand slam by crying about the nonsense of unwritten rules and how he missed a sign and has maturing to do.
For what it's worth, Tatís Jr. has plenty of player (current and former) support behind him, and that's what really matters:
And as a bonus, courtesy of the White Sox, here's today's Tim Anderson pregame media session, where he addresses the "new school" and Tatís Jr.'s grand slam last night: