Month: May 2010

This Week in the Unwritten Rules

This Week in the Unwritten Rules

Posted on by Jason Turbow

May 23
Visual evidence emerges that players have, in the past, run across the pitcher’s mound.

May 24
Ozzie Guillen claims that offenses should shut down as early as the fourth inning. Then he emphasizes his point.

May 24
The juncture at which an umpire issues a warning can make a significant difference in the way the unwritten rules play out, or not.

May 25
Two more intra-squad squabbles—between Albert Pujols and Tony La Russa, and Francisco Rodriguez and Randy Niemann—add to the rash of such incidents so far this season.

May 26
Adrian Beltre explains that players go to extra lengths when it comes to doing things like helping preserve a no-hitter.

May 27
Bengie Molina has a lack of speed, not a lack of feelings—as he lets ESPN know.

May 28
Ted Lilly is called out for pitching from in front of the pitcher’s rubber. “Talk about adding a yard to your fastball,” wrote Whitey Ford about the practice.

May 28
ESPN’s Eduardo Perez offers a mini-primer on how to talk to umpires.

May 29
Colorado’s Ryan Spilborghs swung at the first pitch after teammates had hit back-to-back home runs . . . and hit a home run. One reader to this blog is out a steak because of it.

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Don't Swing on the First Pitch After Back-to-Back Home RUns, Ryan Spilborghs

Spilborghs Swings at First Pitch after Back-to-Back Jacks; Costs Reader Beef

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Welcome to the Memorial Day edition of the Reader Mailbag. This is the first one we’ve ever done.

Dear Mr. Turbow:

My name is Michael Baker and I live in Denver, Colorado. I recently read your article about the “Unwritten Rules of Baseball.”

I thoroughly enjoyed your article, especially Unwritten Rule #1- Don’t Swing at the First Pitch After Back-to-Back Home Runs.

After the Rockies hit back-to-back jacks yesterday I stood up and told my three buddies about “Rule #1.” I then guaranteed, and even bet one guy a steak dinner, that the next batter would not swing at the first pitch. Two seconds later, Ryan Spilborghs swung at the first pitch and crushed a ball over the left field fence.

I humbly request that you send me a check for $150 to cover my expenses as I buy my friend a steak dinner and to compensate me for my humiliation, pain and suffering.

Please mail the check to:

Mr. Michael Baker
XXXXX
Greenwood Village, CO

The check does not have to be certified, I know you are good for it. Cash is acceptable as well.

I can provide wire instructions if that is easier for you.

Sincerely Yours,

Michael  Baker

Michael,

I’m sorry to hear about your lost wager. Steak dinners can be precious commodities.

Unfortunately, I’m merely the messenger for the Code, and am unable to enforce its adherence among the major league ranks.

The notion is to give a touch of professional courtesy to a pitcher who is clearly struggling–a single pitch with which to find his focus and right his ship. It’s known as a “courtesy take,” and it was especially prominent with Sparky Anderson and his Big Red Machine teams of the 1970s.

“Let him know, okay, I’m not swinging,” said Hal McRae, who played on those Cincinnati ballclubs. “I know you’re out there trying to do a job.”

These days, fewer players follow this piece of code. The instance in question also contains some gray area: When Spilborghs came to the plate, the Rockies held a five-run lead in the seventh. In Coors Field, that’s hardly considered safe. Spilborghs can be justifiably criticized for lack of decorum, but so too can he mount a defense that the score was close enough to attack the opposition in any way he could.

Colorado visits San Francisco this Monday. I’ll try to track down the perpetrator for comment at some point during the series.

As you dine, please try not to think of opportunities lost, but of friendships gained through the purveyance of beef.

And thanks for reading.

– Jason

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Umpire Relations

How to Talk to Umpires

Posted on by Jason Turbow

In the wake of two umpire-related events last week—Bob Davidson’s blowout with Joe Maddon, and Joe West ejecting Ozzie Guillen and Mark Buehrle over two disputed balk calls—former big leaguer Eduardo Perez (the son of Hall of Famer Tony Perez, who has managed in Puerto Rico and is an analyst for ESPN) offered up a brief tutorial on umpire relations, a topic with its own chapter in the unwritten rulebook.

Perez’s key points:

  • “Sometimes (as a manager) you know that the umpire made the right call, yet your player doesn’t seem to think so. In situations like that, you almost always still back your guy up because you don’t want to lose his trust.”
  • “Umpires don’t like it when players use their hands as a form of communication. They would rather have you yell at them than flail your arms because everything is on TV and it makes them look disrespected, like you’re showing them up.”
  • “If I disagreed with a strike call, I was taught to look down at the plate and be specific about what I saw: ‘Hey, I had that pitch 6 inches outside.’ Making eye contact and asking the umpire where the pitch was is the wrong move because you’re making more of a scene and questioning his judgment instead of confidently stating your own opinion.”

– Jason

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Casey Blake, Cheating, Pitcher's Rubber, Ted Lilly

Lilly Moving Up in the World. Literally.

Posted on by Jason Turbow

When Alex Rodriguez ran across the pitcher’s mound at the Oakland Coliseum last month, the majority opinion from the viewing public included the sentiment, “I didn’t realize that was considered problematic.”

This also holds true for the issue brought to light by Casey Blake yesterday, when he accused Cubs pitcher Ted Lilly of cheating by standing in front of the rubber, closer to home plate, when he pitched.

“I know he doesn’t have an overpowering fastball,” Blake said in the Los Angeles Times. “I know he’s trying to get as much of an edge as he can. But he moved in.”

The notion is simple: A 59-foot fastball has more zip upon reaching the plate than a 60-foot fastball. Lilly, however, pointed out after the game that pitchers who did this would be at a disadvantage, because they wouldn’t be able to drive off the rubber with their plant foot.

That’s not the opinion of some of the game’s greatest pitchers.

In his book Throwing Heat, Nolan Ryan addressed the subject:

On occasion I’ve pitched from about six inches in front of the rubber when I’ve needed the big strikeout. And I know I’m not the only one who’s done that.

You just rock up, step in the hole, and you’re half a dozen inches closer to the plate. Normally there’s enough dirt and stuff on the mound late in the game to cover things up, but you have to work the area to dig a hole to get your foot in.

Ryan wasn’t alone. Fellow Hall of Famer Whitey Ford talked about the subject in his own book, Slick.

I found that I could get away with . . . pitching in front of the rubber. I did that a lot and nobody ever caught on. If you covered the rubber up with dirt, it was easy to do. It’s just something nobody’s ever looking for. When I coached first base for the Yankees, I never remember checking to see if the pitcher had his foot in contact with the rubber when he delivered the pitch. Sometimes you could stand with both feet on the rubber, get your sign, and then when you pitched, your first step could be about three feet in front of the rubber. Talk about adding a yard to your fastball.

Heck, forget legendary pitchers. Orioles pitcher Brad Bergesen was cited by umpires for this very thing just yesterday.

Blake informed first-base umpire John Hirschbeck of Lilly’s proclivities, but was essentially brushed off; Hirschbeck told him that he couldn’t see anything out of line from his position behind the bag.

Umpires have a long history of leniency when it comes to matters of cheating, being traditionally reluctant to check baseballs for scuff marks or pitchers for foreign substances. It’s one of the reasons so few pitchers are caught.

When Hirschbeck didn’t move closer for a better view, and declined to ask his fellow umps for help, Blake grew visibly agitated, to the point that he had to be restrained by first-base coach Mariano Duncan.

(Hirschbeck, explaining his actions in the Times, said that sacrificing optimal position for making basic calls was not worth moving up to get a better view of Lilly. “I can’t stand on top of the bag,” he said. He also said that every umpire already has the authority to charge a pitcher with cheating, so there was no need to call them in for assistance.)

Blake, however, wasn’t the only one to notice.

As Rob Neyer pointed out at ESPN.com, the Twitter-sphere lit up with all things Lilly. Ex-pitcher C.J. Nitkowski started it off with this: “Watching some daytime MLB. Camera just zoomed in & didn’t realize it caught a pitcher cheating. Don’t ask me who/what. Tricks of the trade.”

He then followed up with, “Uh-oh Casey Blake is on to it. TV guys completely in the dark. I should start my analyst career.”

That left little doubt about who and what he was talking about. As Neyer described, the WGN crew of Len Kasper and Bob Brenly didn’t touch on the reason for the disruption—which could have been because they didn’t want to shovel dirt on their hometown pitcher.

On the Dodgers broadcast, however, Steve Lyons—himself an ex-player—said, “(Blake is) trying to say whether or not, maybe Ted Lilly isn’t even on the rubber. We’ve talked a lot about the fact that he stays way on one side of the rubber or the other, and Casey’s saying he’s about four inches off the rubber in front of it. Which can give you a significant advantage.”

“What we’d missed the first time around,” wrote Neyer, “and what the Cubs broadcast somehow never managed (or bothered) to show—was Blake turning to Hirschbeck and holding his hands four to six inches apart. And again, if anybody would have known, he would.”

From the standpoint of baseball’s Code, Lilly did nothing wrong. Most forms of cheating, after all, are acceptable—provided you knock it off once you’re caught.

(The pitcher’s post-game excuse—”I might have done it a couple times, just trying to gain my footing,” he said in the Times—doesn’t hold much water. Then again, it doesn’t have to. This is baseball.)

Blake, however, violated an unwritten rule by bringing Lilly’s shenanigans to light. That he addressed it after the game was certainly due to reporters’ questions about the disturbance he caused on the field. But making a show of it in the first place leaves something to be desired in the realm of baseball decorum. A subtle notification of the umpire—loud enough for Cubs first baseman Derrek Lee to overhear—would have gotten the job done, even without action from Hirschbeck.

Still, Lilly can expect that people will now be paying attention. If he has anything going in his favor, it’s that as flagrant as he might have been, he’s not anywhere close to Frederic “Germany” Schmidt, a pitcher in the 1800s who would actually sneak into ballparks at night before he pitched, dig up the rubber and move it closer to the plate.

How would Casey Blake would deal with that?

 

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Bengie Molina, Media

Molina Coverage Illustrates Line Between News and Opinion

Posted on by Jason Turbow

The unwritten rules are designed to enforce respect on the ballfield, but they carry over into the media, as well. Criticism of players’ ability and effort is expected; they open themselves up to it when they agree to perform in public for vast sums of money.

Crossing into mocking, however, can ruffle some feathers. Jim Rome famously calling Jim Everett “Chris,” or labeling Eric Gagne a “piece of crap” for weeks on end, is one thing; part of a talk-show host’s job description is to incite.

When a sports-news show crosses that line, however, things can get touchy.

Earlier this month, ESPN showed a replay of Giants catcher Bengie Molina trying to score when Marlins pitcher Ricky Nolasco overthrew third base. A full minute of the 1:12 highlight package was devoted to Molina’s effort—including a slow-motion replay with a Chariots of Fire-esque theme playing in the background. Afterward, the anchor offered Molina a “slow clap,” he said, “just for making the effort.” (Watch it here.)

Molina was suitably offended. “When I was growing up, respect was the most important thing to my father,” he wrote on his blog. “That’s what he talked about every day . . . You respect your parents and your teachers and your fellow human beings.  . . . You can say I’m the slowest guy in baseball or in all of sports or in the entire world. I don’t take issue with that because I AM the slowest guy. I have always been the slowest guy. I can’t challenge that criticism. But ESPN’s intention was not to criticize but to humiliate.”

Henry Schulman, who handles the Giants beat for the San Francisco Chronicle, weighed in, writing, “The media don’t have to like certain players. They can criticize players, but to show that kind of disrespect to a player such as Molina, who has been a Major League catcher for more than 12 seasons, who owns a World Series ring, who shepherds what might be the best starting rotation in baseball, is beyond belief.”

The same concept holds true in mainstream news. It’s why Fox News goes to such lengths—believably or not—to claim that the high percentage of opinions on the network are delivered by pundits, not news anchors.

The distinction is an important one. It’s why when ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption mocked Molina’s speed last year after he was nearly run over by a racing sausage in Milwaukee—“Whose agility were you more impressed by,” asked a reader comment read aloud on the air, “Molina’s or the sausuge’s?”—nobody said a word.

“All I can do is play the way I always have—with respect and professionalism,” wrote Molina. “It’s shame that ESPN, a once great network, won’t have any idea what I’m talking about.”

– Jason

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Sales

Now Hear This

Posted on by Jason Turbow

The Baseball Codes is now officially available as an audio book.

Hear Michael Kramer (who, aside from reading mystery-thrillers and Christian fare, also narrated Joe Torre‘s The Yankee Years) read the text with his unbelievably sultry baritone.

Hear a sample (or buy the audio book) here.

– Jason

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Adrian Beltre, Daisuke Matsuzaka, No-Hitter Etiquette

Beltre’s Dive Shows the Code at Work

Posted on by Jason Turbow

The things one doesn’t do during a teammate’s no-hitter—like, say, talk about it—have been well discussed.

Saturday, Adrian Beltre exemplified what one one does do, as Daisuke Matsuzaka angled to hold the Phillies without a hit.

After Raul Ibanez led off the eighth inning with a walk, Carlos Ruiz smashed a line drive toward the hole on the left side. Beltre improbably snared it with a dive, then threw to first to double up Ibanez. (Watch it here.)

Although the play preserved the no-hitter for only one more batter—Juan Castro followed with a soft hit that fell just beyond the reach of shortstop Marco Scutaro—its intention was paramount.

“You get a little more aggressive because you’d rather have an E-5 than a hit in that situation,” Beltre told ESPNBoston.com. “You don’t get many chances to play behind a no-hitter, and you want to do whatever you can to prevent any little single.”

It’s small, but it’s noteworthy. Ballplayers altering their actions on the field solely out of respect for a teammate’s accomplishment—it’s the heart of the unwritten rules.

– Jason

6
Intra-Team Fights

Can’t We Just All Get Along?

Posted on by Jason Turbow

It’s rare to see open displays of animosity between managers and players. Not that it doesn’t happen; there are all types in baseball and not everybody gets along. This sort of tiff, however, almost inevitably takes place behind closed doors. It’s one of the manager’s duties, after all, to promote a peaceful clubhouse environment—if not in fact than at least in perception.

Suddenly, however, we’ve been awash in such incidents.

It started last week with the open and ongoing feud between Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez and shortstop Hanley Ramirez. It continued three days later when Mets skipper Jerry Manuel pulled John Maine from a game after only five pitches, causing his pitcher to openly rebel in the dugout.

To those episodes, we now add two more.

On Saturday, Albert Pujols went at it in the dugout with St. Louis manager Tony La Russa, after Ryan Ludwick was caught stealing for the final out of the eighth inning, leaving Pujols standing at the plate. It was lose-lose for the slugger; had Ludwick been safe, first base would have opened and Pujols would almost inevitably have drawn an intentional walk.

The slugger flipped both bat and helmet as he returned to the bench, then knocked two trays of gum against the wall. He’s clearly frustrated, having homered only once in May, and without an RBI in his last 10 games (a span during which he has only one extra-base hit).

During that time he also spent five games in the cleanup slot, the first time since 2003 that he’s batted anywhere but third in the lineup.

La Russa, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, responded by saying, “I (expletive) know how to manage.”

On Monday, the Mets got their second angry exchange in a week, when closer Francisco Rodriguez had to be separated from bullpen coach Randy Niemann over an apparent disagreement about how frequently the reliever should be asked both to warm up and appear in games. (Rodriguez heated up on 10 separate occasions during New York’s 20-inning game against St. Louis in April; on Monday he warmed up twice in two innings before closing out the Yankees. Ten of his 21 appearances this season have come in non-save situations.)

The New York Times reported that “the confrontation occurred in full view of some of the fans sitting in right field,” and had to be broken up by other pitchers.

These showdowns seem to be coming in clusters, but they’re hardly unique. Managers and players clash all the time. Here are some of the more extreme examples:

  • 1929: White Sox rookie Art Shires—an avocational boxer—beats up his manager, Lena Blackburne, not once, but twice.
  • 1969: Minnesota manager Billy Martin pounds star pitcher Dave Boswell in a fight. This is hardly the only time Martin appears on this list.
  • 1977: After losing the Rangers’ starting second-base job during spring training, Lenny Randle confronts manger Frank Lucchesi behind the batting cage in Orlando and shatters Lucchesi’s cheekbone with punches. Shortly thereafter, he’s traded to the Mets.
  • 1977: The relationship between Martin, by this time at the helm of the Yankees, and Reggie Jackson, devolves into a shouting match in the visitor’s dugout at Fenway Park, on national TV. The pair has to be restrained from going after each other.
  • 1980: John Montefusco and Giants manager Dave Bristol go at each other behind closed doors after Montefusco accuses Bristol of having too quick a hook. Montefusco’s eye is blackened.
  • 1981: Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog grabs Gary Templeton in the dugout after seeing the player make an obscene gesture to the Busch Stadium crowd, and the two have to be separated. During the off-season, Templeton is traded to San Diego for Ozzie Smith.
  • 1985: Billy Martin’s arm is broken by Yankees pitcher Ed Whitson in a fight that moves from hotel bar to lobby to parking lot, and eventually resumes on the second floor, outside Whitson’s room.
  • 1992: Reds manager Lou Piniella and Rob Dibble go after each other in the middle of the clubhouse. (Watch it here.)
  • 1999: Bobby Bonilla, upset that Mets manager Bobby Valentine doesn’t order retaliation after teammate Robin Ventura is hit by Roger Clemens, confronts Valentine in the dugout. After being sent to the clubhouse, Bonilla rips down the lineup board and hurls it at Valentine’s office.
  • 2002: Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent scuffle in the Giants dugout. The team goes on to win the National League pennant.
  • 2006: Blue Jays manager John Gibbons and pitcher Ted Lilly have at each other in the clubhouse tunnel, just out of sight of TV cameras.

In the two most recent cases of manager-player discord, all parties hewed the unwritten rule that mandates a minimum of public discord, usually via denials that a problem even exists.

“I was hitting and we got thrown out stealing. I wanted to hit. That’s all it was,” said Pujols.

La Russa took it a step farther, saying, “There wasn’t anything special about (the incident). I didn’t pull him aside. I didn’t talk to him afterwards because he doesn’t do it excessively and I know he’s sincere. There are only two times I confront it. Does it happen excessively? Then I say, ‘That’s enough.’ And if I think it’s insincere.”

And the Mets’ Rodriguez? “We were just fooling around,” he said in the Times. “We were just kidding with each other.”

Of course they were.

– Jason

1
Jason Bay, Sergio Mitre, Umpire Warnings

To Warn, or Not to Warn: An Umpire’s Quandary

Posted on by Jason Turbow

I’ve been talking to radio hosts across the country over recent weeks in support of The Baseball Codes, and a surprising number have brought up the topic of umpires, and their affect on the unwritten rules.

It can be profound. An ill-timed warning can prevent appropriate retaliation for a Code violation; instead of completing the disrespect-response cycle, they leave it open-ended, to be continued another day. Meanwhile, the offended party is left to stew, which often makes the situation worse than it would have otherwise been.

Sometimes, of course, umpires understand—and, importantly, tolerate—what’s going on, saving their warnings until after the aggrieved team has a chance to respond in kind.

Last night in New York, however, was not one of those times. In the sixth inning, Yankees reliever Sergio Mitre hit Jason Bay in the back with a pitch. There were two outs and nobody on base (the perfect situation for a pitcher with vengeance on his mind), and Bay had homered in his previous two at-bats. Umpire Marvin Hudson immediately issued warnings to both benches.

It all made sense, right up to the 75 mph breaking ball that drilled Bay. That kind of pitch is the least-likely weapon of choice for a pitcher looking to inflict a little pain—which, had the plunking been intentional, would have been precisely Mitre’s point.

Pitchers are expected to deny intention every time they hit a batter, but in Mitre’s case it was justified.

“It was a breaking ball that got away,” he said in the New York Daily News. “I don’t think a warning was needed from that pitch. It was just a breaking ball that backed up, and it just followed him. It was one of those balls where you try and get away, but it keeps following you. It was just a terrible breaking ball.”

The biggest downside for such a warning is that it lends the perception of intent to a pitch for which there wasn’t any. The Mets didn’t take it that way—no Yankees were hit in response (which could also have been due to the warning)—but it would have been tough to blame them if they did.

– Jason

1
Brett Carroll, Ozzie Guillen, Retaliation

Guillen Makes His Case for Early Retaliation

Posted on by Jason Turbow

One of the beautiful aspects of the unwritten rules is the huge amount of interpretation involved—the gray area between the boundaries of what opposing managers or players might consider to be appropriate.

Leave it to Ozzie Guillen to stomp right through that gray area, leaving footprints all over the Code in the process.

The situation yesterday: Florida led the White Sox 7-0 in the fourth inning when Marlins outfielder Brett Carroll, who had just been unintentionally hit by a pitch, swiped second. Two outs later, with Carroll on third, Gaby Sanchez stole another base for the Marlins.

Guillen felt obliged to respond.

When Carroll next came to the plate, with one out in the fifth, he was drilled again—this time with purpose.

“This is baseball, you have to respect,” Guillen said after the game, addressing the situation. “We had to do something about it, and we did.”

There are two camps for considering Guillen’s actions.

  • Pro: A seven-run lead is almost universally considered sufficient to shut down the running game.
  • Anti: Most people in baseball consider the fourth inning to be too early for that to happen. The fifth is generally the first frame in which a manager considers a blowout score when plotting his team’s strategy; even then, many push it back to the sixth or seventh.
  • Pro: Guillen made the point that his team was last in hitting and runs scored in the American League. While that’s not quite accurate—Seattle hits worse, and four teams have scored fewer runs—lack of ability on either the offense or pitching staff is a valid consideration as it relates to comebacks. Granted, it makes more sense for the team on the positive end of a lopsided score to invoke this clause as an excuse for continuing to run while holding a sizeable lead than it does  the team trying to dig its way out of a hole.
  • Anti: The retaliatory strike, combined with Guillen’s postgame bemoaning of his club’s offensive struggles, smacks of frustration, not respect. The Code is about the motivation behind the deed as much as the deed itself, and frustration is rarely an acceptable call to action.
  • Pro: From Sox pitcher Freddy Garcia: “It’s 7-0, it’s not a good thing to steal a base. That’s no respect for the other team. Whatever happens happens, but it’s not showing respect. It’s 7-0 when you steal second and third. I think it’s bad baseball.”
  • Anti: Sox first baseman Paul Konerko, to ESPNChicago.com: “We were still holding the guy on base. Usually unless you have a double-digit lead you [can] steal a base.

One thing in Guillen’s favor is consistency. When asked about this very subject several years ago, his answer meshed perfectly with his actions yesterday: “To me the rule is, if you’re up by six, then you stop. If you’re up less than six you should be running, because any team in the American League can score 10 runs in one inning.”

Two innings after Chicago meted out retribution against Carroll, the Marlins responded in kind, drilling White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski in the right elbow. (Such is the curse of being A.J. Pierzynski; you end up targeted even when you’ve done nothing wrong.)

For his part, Pierzynski toed the line of the Code, denying to the Chicago Tribune that it had been intentional, and that pitcher Dan Meyer just “threw inside and it got away.”

The most true quote about the situation came from Konerko, who said, “As far as the unwritten rule, if you ask five different guys you are going to get five different answers.”

It’s true. And it’s beautiful.

– Jason

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