Time to erase the unwritten rules of baseball
New York City’s beauty is undeniable, and a lot of it draws from its mixture of old architecture and modern buildings. Sometimes those two worlds collide, and the brick of the old falls to the need for the sleek design of the new.
In 2009, the Bronx was no exception.
Sport fan or not, anyone visiting New York City needs to visit New Yankee Stadium. Not only does it serve as the home of the quintessential New York team in the New York Yankees, but it also serves as a historical monument to one of the most storied franchises in Major League Baseball history.
Gone is the unforgiving concrete of the Old Yankee Stadium, but within the limestone and granite walls of New Yankees Stadium is the New York Yankees Museum. In a white room on the main level at Gate 6, relics of the past like the Thurman Munson’s old locker and the old stadium's home plate are displayed with great pride.
These remnants remind fans of a past that should be honored and remembered. While the exhibit features a wall of balls signed by Yankees of the past and present, a future display has yet to be made to house one of the most outdated vestiges of the past:
The unwritten rules of baseball.
Within a few hundred feet of that historical room, the real game is being played on the field and evolving with modern culture. While the unwritten rules had their time, there is no need for a stuffy honor code in the professional game to dictate how players need to act in certain situations.
Is there a place for unwritten rules to keep some people in check? Sure there is. Little leagues need these rules so kids won’t be demoralized from playing the game. Professional players with men playing with other grown men don’t need that kind of protection.
A number of the unwritten rules of baseball fall under the “good strategy” umbrella and might as well be written rules of the game (don’t play up early in the game, hit where the ball is pitched, etc.), but there are a number of rules that just don’t make sense in the 21st century.
Some players obviously disagree.
San Francisco Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner has been a protector of these rules since he entered the league in 2009 and has enforced them with Judge Dredd-like ruthlessness. Monday night against the Los Angeles Dodgers, it cost his team a game.
Yasiel Puig, who has had a checkered past against Bumgarner, grounded out to the Giants pitcher in a tight spot in the bottom of the seventh frame to end the inning. Bumgarner was fired up and showed it with a glove slap followed by staring down Puig.
As soon as Puig met his glare, Bumgarner exchanged words and a halfhearted shoving match cleared the benches. At 97 pitches in, Bumgarner was pulled by Giants manager Bruce Bochy from the game. The Giants blew their ninth lead after leading eight innings and lost the game in walk-off fashion in the ninth inning.
While it is unclear why Bochy removed Bumgarner from the game, let’s not forget what happened that might have created that decision. Bumgarner nearly started a brawl for getting looked at. Not only that, he was the one who started the staring!
On top of that, he celebrated a play. Had a batter done the same thing to him, Bumgarner would’ve put a ball right into the ribs of the player the next at-bat because that is what the code calls for. If anything, Bumgarner is in the wrong here.
These are the kinds of infractions that have made a mockery the unwritten rules. If looking at someone is a fightable offense, what other mundane things will players throw down for?
In addition to using your eyes, there are a couple of other unwritten rules that need to go the way of Members Only jackets and disappear. Stealing bases when you’re up during a blowout is a jerk move, but if you’re playing bad maybe you should concentrate on stopping the other team instead of crying about a violation of the unofficial rules.
Professional baseball players are trained to try their best. Expecting professionals to let their foot off the gas pedal because they are hurting your feelings is more disrespectful because they are pitying a team rather than playing it.
Not only does that apply to the winning team, but it is required by the “code” that the losing team not steal bases as well. Somehow, doing everything you can to claw back into a game is looked down upon. The rule reads like an attempt to extinguish competitive fire, which is the wrong message to send to people who are getting paid a lot of money to entertain fans.
Another rule in need of removal is plunking a batter for celebrating a home run, which is one of the weakest moves in sports. The opposition just lit you up, and the best you can do as a pitcher is hit the guy to stop him? Heaven forbid you continue to try and solve the batter to get something to help the team like an out.
Also, in terms of entertainment, baseball is sorely lagging behind. Most celebrations are not targeting at a pitcher specifically. Hitters are just celebrating a big play they just made. Pitchers take it personally like they just had their dogs kicked. Baseball needs celebrations and shows of emotions without retribution because characters in the game need to shine to make baseball fun again.
While these rules are unnecessary, there are still some code violations that have their place in the modern game. If hitters stare down or celebrate to demean a pitcher, throwers have every right to protect their honor. If a hitter makes a celebration personal, there should be consequences.
Bunting to break up a no-hitter is a pretty cheap strategy to thwart a chance at history for a pitcher. Critics may point out that bunting falls under trying your best to win, but a bunt is inconsequential to winning at a certain point in the game, and now the bunting team is really just playing to deny someone a career day on a play over which he has little control.
The world is changing around us, and the game needs to change with it. A code that discourages teams for trying their best to win and allowing pitchers to hurl an object at 95 miles per hour for something as trivial as celebrating a good play has no part in a game that’s supposed to be fun and entertaining.
Like the old items found in New Yankee Stadium, the current set of unwritten rules is all but history in a small section of a new era of baseball needing to be revised to fit a more modern game. The New York Yankees Museum is built into New Yankees Stadium, but it is not the main attraction; the progressing game on the field is.
Much like some of the old buildings of New York, the unwritten rules of baseball were the standard for the game for a long time. Like all old buildings, however, there comes a time when they need to be destroyed to make way for a newer structure that fits with the rest of the world around it.
All we need is a wrecking ball.
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