I love baseball.
I love watching it live, and I love watching it on television.
I’d play the game if I had the chance today.
And with the advent of ABS, the sport is even better today. Games are quicker, and new layers of strategy have been added that make the game even more fun and interesting to watch.
But baseball is not without its warts.
The biggest:
The way in which pitchers throw baseballs at batters and hit them for infractions that include:
- Admiring a home run too long — standing at the plate and watching it.
- Bat flipping after a home run or big hit.
- Celebrating too enthusiastically — yelling, gesturing toward the dugout, pounding one’s chest
- Slow home-run trots perceived as showing up the pitcher.
- Stealing bases with a large lead, especially late in a game.
- Bunting to break up a no-hitter, particularly late in the game.
- Swinging on a 3–0 pitch with a large lead.
- Continuing aggressive play when the game is supposedly decided.
- Suspected sign stealing, which is perfectly legal
- Peeking at the catcher’s signs while at the plate, which is perfectly legal
- Relaying pitch locations or signs from second base, which is perfectly legal
- Hitting a home run off the pitcher earlier in the game
In response to these perceived atrocities, a pitcher may choose to throw a rock-hard sphere 90 miles per hour at the body of a batter who is required to stand still within a chalk box.
This is an act of cowardice.
One man or one team is angry at another man or another team, so in response, they retaliate by hitting a defenseless opponent with a baseball.
In the real world, this would be considered assault, and the person doing the throwing would be arrested and charged with a crime.
In the real world, we’d also agree that the person who threw the baseball at the defenseless person is a damn coward—a pathetic, lowly weasel who deserves to spend time in jail.
But on the baseball field?
Part of the game.
Why?
Baseball players are sensitive snowflakes.
Hit a towering, 460-foot home run and spend two extra seconds watching it before running?
“How dare you! I’ll be throwing a ball at your head two innings from now.”
Flip your bat so that it rotates three times before landing on the ground after hitting a home run?
“You hurt my feelings. I need to hurt your elbow now by hitting it with this rock-hard projectile.”
Swing at my 3-0 pitch when your team is leading by five runs?
“How dare you try to hit the ball! Now I’m going to hit you!”
And the endless list of unwritten rules in baseball is ridiculous. In every other sport, celebration after a remarkable play is perfectly acceptable.
Football players choreograph touchdown celebrations.
Basketball players openly trash talk each other for the entire game.
Hockey players gather after goals and celebrate as a team.
But hit a game-tying home run off that wilting daisy on the mound?
Put your head down and run, lest you be assaulted two innings later by the petulant coward with the baseball and the ability to throw it faster than a car travels on a highway.
If you want to retaliate with violence (which is what throwing a baseball at another human being is), do so face to face.
Man to man.
Charge the batter’s box if you must. Duke it out on the field. But don’t hit a defenseless man with a baseball because you’re experiencing some big feelings.
Even better, keep your tender emotions in check when the big, mean man flips his baseball bat into the air after hitting a home run. Muscle through the emotional assault on your fragile psyche and strike the guy out next time.
Someone please inform baseball players that winning is the best revenge.
Someone please inform these losers that throwing baseballs at players who have no chance of getting out of the way is childish, pathetic, and one of the greatest acts of cowardice perpetrated on network television on a regular basis.
I love baseball. I love almost everything about it.
But retaliating against batters by hitting them with a baseball?
This has to go.
