In lieu of actual baseball, I’ll be posting snippets that were cut from The Baseball Codes as a way of amusing myself and, hopefully, you. Today’s theme: showboating and celebrations These old stories help show just how far baseball has come.

After St. Louis catcher Gene Oliver hit a long home run against Don Drysdale at Dodger Stadium, he watched the ball for a beat longer than usual, then compounded the mistake by saying, loud enough for Drysdale to hear, “Hey, bat boy, come get the bat.”

In Oliver’s next at-bat, Drysdale drilled him hard enough to buckle the hitter to the dirt. As the St. Louis trainer tended to the wounded player, Drysdale shouted, “Hey bat boy, come get Oliver.”