In sports, there will always be the unwritten rules. The rules that will never actually be stated as official but every player will follow these rules because the heat they would receive from their peers, not to mention the internet, would be unbearable. However, in baseball, the unwritten rules have to be followed, until recently.
Before now, there have never been players gutsy enough to test the limits of the unwritten rules put on baseball. With the likes of Bryce Harper and Rougned Odor (we will talk about him later) coming to the limelight, the unwritten rules that have once plagued the game look like they have changed.
However, the unwritten rules have been broken prior to this season. Just last season, two unwritten rules were broken. One player received the heat that you would expect from breaking unwritten rules, the other was Jose Bautista.
Yes, the same Jose Bautista that was involved in a fight with the Texas Rangers’ Odor just a few days ago. The fight, one that was viewed by many, captured the eyes of non-baseball fans around the world and was finally a play that was shared on your Facebook wall and your Twitter timeline.
Odor would eventually be suspended for 8 games, but the fight put the unwritten rules back into perspective and it put the “Make Baseball Fun Again” campaign that Bryce Harper has been lobbying for into the forefront of the conversation.
Now, what was the unwritten rule that Bautista broken last season? One of the oldest unwritten rules in the book, which is never appreciate a home run you have hit.
Flashback to October, when the Toronto Blue Jays are playing host to the Texas Rangers in the 2015 ALDS. Bautista comes up to the plate in the 7th inning of Game 5, with the scored tied at 3. When Bautista gets a hold of the ball, he hits it into the second deck of the Rogers Centre, and instead of rounding the bases, he has what has been referred to as “the most ostentatious bat flip in M.L.B. history” by The New York Times writer Andrew Keh.
The Rangers did not retaliate in that game, but did have some words for the Blue Jays and Bautista in general. Sam Dyson, the pitcher who allowed the home run, went up to the next batter Edwin Encarnacion and “told him that Jose needs to calm that down, respect the game more.” Regardless of what happened, no retaliation happened and no benches cleared immediately.
The internet had a different view to the bat flip, however. The internet embraced the bat flip as majestic and did not bother addressing the unsportsmanlike conduct that may been performed. They made the bat flip into baseball cards, t-shirts, jack-o-lanterns and even tattoos.
So, why are the unwritten rules of baseball being criticized now? Why are the rules that are broken almost every night a game is played finally put into the limelight? Is it because there is finally a player who has a history of fights has brought it to the forefront?
There is no question Odor has a history with fights. While playing in the Texas Rangers minor league system, Odor was suspended for 4 games after initiating a brawl against the Vancouver Canadians. This time around, Odor was suspended double the games (8 games) and made a poster boy for the rules the MLB have.
We do not know if the Rangers had a retaliation planned, but there is plenty of evidence that can point to that. If this is the Rangers way of retaliating a bat flip, it is classless. If it is a way of defending a questionable slide into second base, it can be viewed as a way defending yourself.
The retaliation by the Rangers is not the only time an unwritten rule has been broken this season. In under 40 games, two starting pitchers have been pulled by their managers while having a no-hitter through however many innings. One of those was by Dodgers’ pitcher Ross Stripling, who had 7 1/3 innings of no hit baseball before allowing a walk in the 8th inning to Angel Pagan of the San Francisco Giants. Stripling was pulled immediately following the walk and was replaced by Chris Hatcher, who allowed a game-tying home run to Trevor Brown. The Giants would go on to win the game in the 10th inning, when Brandon Crawford hit the ball out of the ballpark, giving the Giants an unpredictable win.
As well, Bautista’s questionable bat flip in the ALDS was not the first time an unwritten rule was broken that season. A few months prior, Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals lost his perfect game 26 outs into it, when Jose Tabata leaned into a pitch by Scherzer and Scherzer was called for a hit by pitch. Tabata received the hate but Tabata did whatever he had to do to win the game. Regardless of what Tabata did, Scherzer would end up with a no-hitter, but the perfect game would have been a lot more impressive.
Frankly, the unwritten rules of baseball are not new. They have been around for a while and have been broken multiple times. There will be more people who bunt to break up a no-hitter, there will be more pitchers who are taken out of no-hitters after hitting 100 pitches. Why, though? Because you are taught to do anything to win the game.
There will be more retaliations this year and there will even be one on Odor when the Blue Jays and Rangers face off again next season. Retaliations are a thing of baseball and they will continue to happen, regardless of how many suspensions are handed out. Tensions will flare when the Blue Jays and Rangers meet again and there may very well be another brawl.
In terms of these fights, the MLB have sent a message to players. It is a message that has never been really put out there, regardless of the amount of brawls that have occurred in the past. Whether the message they are trying to send works, only time will tell.