Category: Celebrations

Celebrations

Garrett Suspension Shows Exactly What Kind Of Celebration MLB Is Promoting, And What Kind Of Celebration It Is Not

Posted on by Jason Turbow

By handing down a seven-game suspension to Amir Garrett, Major League Baseball has thoroughly muddied the waters about what it wants to see from players when it comes to celebrations.

On Saturday, Garrett punctuated a strikeout of Anthony Rizzo by yelling at the batter, a one-on-one confrontation taken by those in the Cubs dugout as disrespectful. It’s not difficult to understand where they were coming from. It was disrespectful. So disrespectful that Javy Baez vaulted the dugout railing and charged the field.

Given that Garrett was subsequently suspended for seven games and Baez only ended up with a fine, MLB is clear in who it holds culpable. Except that Garrett didn’t put anybody in danger; the physical confrontation was prompted by Baez. MLB ruled similarly earlier in the month when it suspended Nick Castellanos for flexing over pitcher Jake Woodford, punishment that would have almost certainly been absent had not Yadier Molina reacted by pushing Castellanos from behind. For that, Castellanos was suspended for two games while Molina got off scott free.

Garrett’s suspension leads to a question similar to those raised following the Castellanos incident: Had Baez not responded, and had Rizzo returned to the dugout as he was already doing, would the league have handed down any discipline at all? Not damn likely.

So we’re left to guess. Bat flips have recently gone mainstream, in no small part because the league officially adopted them as part of its play-up-the-personalities campaign. A decade ago, however, they were seen as disrespectful. Had an incensed opponent charged the field in response to one, who would the league have held to account? According to the current structure, it’d be the bat flipper himself.

At least the decision to suspend Garrett more or less lines up with the way players see things on the field. Pitchers mostly don’t take offense to bat flips, and hitters mostly do take offense to being yelled at after they strike out. That’s because what Garrett did is genuinely offensive, and bat flipping is not.

People keep talking about how reactions like Garrett’s and Castellanos’ are standard fare in the NBA, and wonder why baseball so breathlessly tries to tamp down such behavior. There are a few reasons for this. For one thing, short of starting a fight there’s no such thing as retaliation in the NBA—not in the sense of a pitcher throwing at a hitter, anyway. Also, action waits for no man, and there’s not much time during a basketball game to consider somebody’s words. Guys can jaw all they want, but by the time the guys they’re insulting have formulated a response they’re already heading back down the floor. In the NFL, end-zone dances have become commonplace, but teams continue to get flagged for taunting should they cross that particular line.

What MLB wants here is obvious: Feel-good celebrations that can be marketed to a baseball-centric crowd. Even Garrett’s own “rock the baby” motion, which he does after getting a big out—putting the opponent to sleep or whatnot—has not been taken too personally by opponents.

What MLB does not want is just as obvious: A turn toward the NBA. How do we know? Because if this was really about guys stoking dangerous situations, then the players responsible for physical confrontations—Baez and Molina, respectively—would be punished in ways similar to or exceeding the revelers. That didn’t happen.

The league office has spoken, so listen up. Keep it clean, baseballers, and celebrate at your own pace so long as you stay on the proper side of the league-designated line.

And if by chance you don’t know where that line is drawn, they’ll be sure to tell you.

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Celebrations

As April Ends, Pitchers Take Celebrations To New, Infuriating Level

Posted on by Jason Turbow

On one hand, there’s Let the Kids Play, wherein major league hitters are given leeway by the home office to preen and bat flip, free of judgement and repercussion. Pitchers have responded to this informal edict by beginning in increasing numbers to celebrate similarly, particularly following big strikeouts.

The equity of the system is logical, although observing logic has never been a strong suit for ballplayers. The topic has come up several times over the last week alone.

It started with Trevor Bauer vs. Fernando Tatis, which set the bar pretty high. After Tatis doubled down against Bauer, making fun of the pitcher’s previous antics as part of two home run trots in the same game, Bauer credited him publicly for his efforts. (Tatis’ alleged peeking: not so much.)

When the celebrations spun in the opposite direction, however, things got salty.

Start on Friday, when Philadelphia pitcher Jose Alvarado rejoiced after fanning Mets left fielder Dominic Smith to end the eighth inning in what would be a 2-1 Phillies victory. Alvarado spun toward second base and did a couple of low-slung flex pumps, then turned back to the plate and continued the act. Smith took exception and benches cleared.

On Saturday, Cincinnati’s Amir Garrett acted similarly, so angering the Cubs that Javier Báez —who wasn’t even on the field—hopped the railing to approach the pitcher, spurring another dugout-emptying incident.

There is, of course, one notable difference between the Tatis incident and the latter two.

Start with Alvarado, who came into the game irked after being chirped at by the Mets on April 13 for two pitches to Michael Conforto—one of which ended up near Conforto’s head, the other of which hit him. Among the loudest voices in New York’s dugout that day was Dominic Smith.

So when the pitcher fanned Smith in a big moment, he let Smith know all about it. Alvarado shouted at the hitter as they walked off the field, then did a you-talk-too-much pantomime with his hand when Smith responded. At that point, the two approached each other with an abundance of macho posturing and not much will to actually fight. (After the game, Smith did offer to meet Alvarado under the stands “if he really wants to get after it.”)

Garrett’s incident was similar. After fanning Anthony Rizzo, Garrett pounded his chest and yelled directly at the hitter. Again, history fueled his decision. Garrett, for whom displays of emotion are commonplace, pulled a similar act with Báez in 2018, and spurred a similar incident with Chicago’s Kyle Schwarber in 2019.

This is where we delve further into the gray area that is Major League Baseball in 2021. Are celebrations to be tolerated? According to the league, as well as to the majority of pitchers tasked with enforcing decorum, they are. So now we must ask what types of celebrations are to be tolerated.

What Tatis pulled against Bauer is apparently kosher, mostly because the pitcher deemed it so. The reasons he did this are obvious: Bauer has long been an outspoken proponent of bringing life to the sport via personal flair, and is even-handed with his opinions about who gets to exhibit said flair, even when he’s on the wrong end of it. Even more importantly, Tatits’ stylings, while aimed at Bauer, were also playful and firmly rooted in memes that the pitcher himself had started.

Alvarado and Garrett, on the other hand, were firmly focused on showing up the opposition. Their intentions were obvious and petty, and the responses they elicited should not have been difficult to predict. Which may have been the point.

Báez, a man known for his own celebratory prowess, laid down the opinion for his caucus after Saturday’s game.

“I’m not going to let [Garrett] or anyone disrespect my teammates or my team,” Báez said in a Chicago Tribune report. “It was not a big situation. I’m going to try to stay professional with this but … he needs to respect the game. If you don’t respect the game and if you don’t respect us, then that’s going to happen. Because he’s doing it to us. He’s not doing it to his teammates to pump them (up).”

So it seems that the answer to the question about where we are, exactly, on this topic is … we still don’t know. The underlying tenet of baseball’s unwritten rules, be they the modern-day version or the buttoned-up overkill from generations past, is respect. The threshold has changed markedly, but it still exists, and lines continue to be crossed. With attitudes shifting so quickly, it’s now mostly a matter of keeping up with where things stand at any given moment.

The Phillies and Reds gave us some clear-cut examples. Hitters have achieved so much celebratory leeway that it’s now pitchers who tend to give us pause. This might be because they don’t have a home run to admire or a trot to enact; their focal point for strikeout success is and will forever be the plate. Frequently their theatrics don’t mean anything more than the theatrics from their offensive counterparts … but sometimes they do. To judge by last week, some pitchers may hav trouble distinguishing bat flips from direct, one-on-one showdowns. (For what it’s worth, MLB agrees that what Alvarado did was not Letting the Kids Play: the pitcher was subsequently suspended for three games.)

In this context, I can’t help thinking that Báez’s response to Garrett sounds remarkably similar to comments from players of previous generations who were busy decrying things like sideburns or pants being worn too long. You know: Kids these days.

The more things change, it seems, the more they stay the same.

0
Celebrations, Don't Peek

Tatis Chases Waterfalls, Bauer Responds In Kind

Posted on by Jason Turbow

This weekend, the Padres and Dodgers showed us exactly how baseball is changing, and also exactly how it is not. On both counts, they’re right on the money.

Traditionally, baseball has frowned on showmanship, viewing it—particularly as pertains to batter’s box theatrics—as a personal affront to the pitcher. As a result, home run pimping has inspired its share of beanball responses over the years. Those who persisted tended to maintain that their celebrations were entirely about themselves and their teammates, and that lack of respect played no part.

It wasn’t until recent years that pitchers started to believe it.

The first-ever home run pimp may have been Harmon Killebrew, who is counted by many as the pioneer of watching one’s own fly balls leave the yard. No less than Reggie Jackson has pointed toward Killebrew as inspiration in that regard. Still, it took a truly free spirit like Yasiel Puig, who after coming up in 2013 consistently busted barriers around this topic, for the movement to gain its first semblance of legitimacy. During the World Baseball Classic in 2017, when the U.S. got a gander at teams like Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, with rosters stocked with big leaguers having the times of their lives, it finally started to settle in that this might be the shape of baseball to come.

Which brings us to Fernando Tatis and Trevor Bauer.

On Saturday, Tatis drilled two homers against the Dodgers star and leveraged both moments to the hilt, sending messages in direct response to prior theatrics Bauer had visited upon the Padres. Irresistible force, meet immovable object.

After Tatis’ first homer, he covered his right eye with his hand while rounding the bases, in reference to a gimmick Bauer pulled during spring training in which he pitched the better part of three shutout innings against San Diego with one eye closed, then made sure that everybody knew it.

The Padres did not take major issue with this, but you better believe they noticed. Thus, on Saturday we got this:

Five innings later, Tatis did it again, hitting a quality 3-2 pitch from Bauer over the center field fence. This time, in addition to a bat flip and his standard backward shuffle while approaching third base, he included an imitation of the Bauer strut, which is actually the Connor McGregor strut, which the pitcher pulls out on occasion after a big strikeout.

Only a few years ago, the frequency of these displays, and their volume, would have elicited an on-field response. Now, however, we’re Letting the Kids Play, and Trevor Bauer is unlike other pitchers in oh so many ways. To his credit, he encourages this kind of stuff, going so far after the game as to use the word “soft” in reference to pitchers who retaliate for such things. “If you give up a homer, a guy should celebrate it,” he said. “It’s hard to hit in the big leagues.”

Bauer went even further on his YouTube channel, breaking down Tatis’ actions in a complimentary way. “It makes me feel good because they’re aware of my one-eye celebration,” he said. “My clip went viral, his clip can go viral—it’s good for baseball.” Bauer called Tatis’ bat flip on the second homer “tasteful,” and noted that the entire shtick was directed toward the San Diego dugout, not at Bauer or other Dodgers, “so, highest of high marks on that.”

Which brings us to the second part of the story. The part about which Bauer is less zen.

On the pitch that Tatis hit for his second homer, he appeared to look backward as catcher Will Smith was giving his signs. Tatis’ peek came too late to see Smith’s fingers, which he’d already folded back into his palm, but just in time to see the catcher lean to his right, a subtle clue that he was preparing to receive an outside pitch. This might be how the hitter was able to lean into a cutter that ended up well into the opposite batter’s box, and still managed to pull it over the wall in left field.

There are lots of ways to explain this. Bauer had been living on the outer edge against Tatis throughout the at-bat, placing four of his six pitches wide of the strike zone, so it didn’t necessarily take a magician—or a cheater—to discern what was happening. During his look back, it’s possible that Tatis was just scratching his nose and didn’t see a thing.

But the hitter’s body language—stepping toward the pitch even as Bauer was releasing it, and easily handling what should have been ball four by a considerable margin—said plenty. We’ve addressed the issue of peeking on a number of occasions in this space, like that time in 2017 when the Angels suspected various Oakland players of looking backward. Early in the pandemic, we also offered a host of examples from throughout history.

Whether Bauer noticed Tatis doing this in the moment is unclear, but he certainly did after the game. In the same YouTube clip, Bauer addressed the issue directly:

“If you start looking at signs, if you start pulling this bush-league stuff, that’s when people get pissed off. …. That’s the type of stuff that would get you hit in other games. Now, I’m mild-mannered about it. I’m going to send a message this way [via video] and say, hey, that’s not okay, and if you keep doing it something will have to happen.”

Bauer said that while “there’s no rule anywhere that says [Tatis] can’t look back,” there’s also “no rule that says I can’t stick a fastball in your ribs.”

This is classic unwritten-rules policing, albeit via video and not with a message pitch. You got caught, the other team let you know about it, and now you have to knock it off. It’s next-level code enforcement, and while many people have thoughts about Trevor Bauer, pro and con, he comes off as entirely reasonable in the above clip.

How Bauer reacts the next time Tatis (or any Padre, probably) does something similar will be something to see. Having publicly threatened to drill a guy, even obliquely, the pitcher is certain to draw notice from the league office should he ever decide to act on that impulse. The Padres, knowing this, might be further inspired to elicit such a response. And ever does the gamesmanship spiral continue.

In summary: Bat flipping and crazy trots around the bases are, for most people—and certainly for Bauer and Tatis—part of baseball’s mainstream. Peeking at a catcher’s signs is certainly not.

Both developments have been logged and noted, to be built upon the next time something like this goes down. We’re counting the days.

2
Celebrations

Showmanship Showdown in NLDS: Why Would Anyone Ever Listen To Manny Machado?

Posted on by Jason Turbow

To judge by yesterday’s game, Manny Machado, a guy known for overt displays of showmanship, is less tolerant when the other team does it. Or maybe it’s that he approves of bat flips—even the excessive kind, the kind where regular bat flippers go, “Hoooo, that sure was something”—but not when a pitcher gets into the act. Or maybe Machado thinks celebrating his own feat is cool, but Dodgers pitcher Brusdar Graterol celebrating teammate Cody Bellinger is not.

So what’a a little hypocrisy between ex-teammates?

Machado is no stranger to this type of nonsense. Remember when he kept hitting A’s catchers in the head with his backswing, almost certainly with intention, then reacted poorly when the A’s threw at his knees in response? Remember when, while playing for the Dodgers, he rammed into the heel of stretching Brewers first baseman Jesus Aguilar, again almost certainly with intention? Remember when he spiked Dustin Pedroia? Remember when he threw a hissy fit over an entirely ordinary tag? Remember when he tried to trip a catcher circling under a pop-up?

All of which to say is that Machado, a guy with maybe the worst reputation of any big leaguer—in a players’ poll last year, referenced in one of the links above, 65 percent of his colleagues rated him as the dirtiest player in the sport, with the runner-up garnering less than 10 percent—doesn’t have much in the way of moral authority when it comes to this kind of stuff.

That doesn’t keep him from talking, of course.

A recap of last night’s action:

* With the Padres trailing 4-1 in the sixth, Machado hit a leadoff homer, then went all Jose Bautista:

* With the Padres trailing 4-3 in the seventh, two outs and a runner on second, Fernando Tatis Jr. smoked Graterol’s first pitch—a 99-mph sinker—407 feet to center field. Unfortunately for the Padres, center field at Globe Life Field is precisely 407 feet from the plate, and Bellinger made one of the great catches in playoff history.

* In that moment, Graterol went from goat to hero. Tatis was the first hitter he’d faced. He’d already balked the tying run into scoring position. Now he was facing the prospect of surrendering the lead altogether.

When Bellinger came up with the ball, Graterol lost his damn mind.

Let’s give it to the guy. Sure, we haven’t seen anything like this from a pitcher pretty much ever, but the fellow was excited. When Machado was excited earlier in the game, he had a bat to throw. From the mound, Graterol threw the only things available: his cap and his glove.

This was a series-winning celebration, not an I-just-escaped-the-seventh-inning-of-Game-2-by-the-width-of-a-nose-hair celebration. It was more Little League than Major League. It was the kind of thing that you can easily see an opponent getting ticked off over.

Just not Manny Machado. Maybe if it was Eric Hosmer—Tatis’ Code-whisperer back in August—Graterol would have responded differently. But Machado has no right, now or ever, to lecture a fellow player about on-field comportment. Hell, he likely inspired Graterol with his own actions earlier in the game. When Machado, on hand in the on-deck circle, started yelling at the pitcher—a triple “fuck you” followed by “I’ll be waiting for you”—Graterol offered a perfect response: He waved and blew kisses.

Various Dodgers, primarily Max Muncy, emerged to shout Machado back to his dugout, and the confrontation more or less ended there … for the time being. Maybe Machado will be waiting. Maybe some of his teammates are willing to take up the cause. If anything does happen, it’ll probably go down next season, when every inning isn’t quite so fraught.

If so, it’ll be the dumbest fight in baseball history, two guys overreacting to each other’s overreaction on the field. Let the kids play.

1
Celebrations

Break Out the Camera, MLB, It’s Selfie Time

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Last year I talked about a minor leaguer doing push-ups at second base to celebrate a double, and how it fit into the modern landscape of Let the Kids Play.

It was inevitable that, after the league office built a marketing campaign around celebrating players doing celebratory things, the envelope would get pushed. In the link above, it was a kid who didn’t draw much notice given that he was playing in the Single-A Florida State League. Yesterday it was Marcel Ozuna, who carries a somewhat more robust public profile.

Just a couple of years ago, somebody stopping in the middle of his home run trot to take a pantomime selfie, especially during the postseason, would have earned a brushback pitch—at minimum—in future at-bats. When Ozuna did it yesterday (and when half the Braves roster got into the act after Adam Duvall homered three batters later) … well, we’ll have to wait until next season for a response from the vanquished Reds, but anything they offer beyond a shrug of the shoulders will be a surprise.

Really, what else could we expect? This surely isn’t what baseball had in mind when it officially blessed on-field celebrations, but they must have known that when the outlandish becomes normalized, players will search for the next extreme. Now we have touchdown dances mid-trot.

Within that context, it’s difficult to argue with Ozuna. Or with Fernando Tatis … or Manny Machado … or Luis Robert … or Tatis AGAIN, all of whom did some celebrating of their own yesterday.

These guys and the rest of their cohorts are bringing life to the sport, and there’s lots of benefit to that. If an angry Reds pitcher decides to exact some revenge on Ozuna next season, or a member of the Cardinals takes some issue with Tatis today, we’ll deal with that fallout then. Chances are, they’ve already forgotten everything, in which case baseball will get along just fine.

It’s the possibility that a pitcher hasn’t forgotten that would throw the entire machine off kilter. Because how does baseball as an institution handle somebody feeling disrespected by a celebration that the league itself has tacitly endorsed? Suspension has always been the discipline of of choice (with the latest example coming just last week, against Robert’s White Sox), but the inherent tension between old-school pitchers behaving in traditional ways, and the new-school mentality telling them to just get over it, is not going away. (To be fair, some pitchers fully embrace swag of their own.)

MLB, of course, could easily legislate this level of celebration out of existence if that was truly its concern. But it’s not. The league likes the attention, not to mention that there’s nothing inherently bad about guys getting their fun on.

Which leaves the holdout ranks of red-asses to adapt or get suspended. Something will eventually give, it’s just a matter of when.

2
Celebrations, Home run pimping, Veteran Status

Young Blood Heroic, Old Man Stoic, Dodgers Up In Arms About The Result

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Occasionally, Let the Kids Play can be as simple as actually letting the kids play. Fernando Tatis Jr. doing heroics for the Padres is a perfect example of this. Who among mainstream viewers cares what the count was when he swung?

Yesterday gave us another homer-hitting Padre with his own dose of controversy, and in so doing presented reason to explore some depths of baseball’s unwritten rules.

The Padre in question is Trent Grisham, and the homer in question came off of LA’s Clayton Kershaw, and tied the game in the sixth inning. The behavior in question was a pretty profound pimp job, which led to significant jawing between Grisham and the Dodgers bench while Grisham was still rounding the bases.

First, some scene setting. The Padres are chasing LA in the National League West, having won 11 of their last 13 to reduce a six-game deficit to 2.5 going into last night. Also, the Dodgers are really good. While they’ve been winning the last seven NL West titles, the Padres have finished last three times and next-to-last twice over the past five years, finishing an average of 27 games back.

So yeah, they’re excited.

And yeah, when they tie a game with a huge homer against a future Hall of Famer, they’re excited.

And yeah, when it’s a 23-year-old who has never in his life had so monumental a hit, he’s excited.

And he’s allowed to be.

Based on how Grisham exhibited that excitement, however, the Dodgers thought otherwise.

After his swing, Grisham stood near the batter’s box (as home run hitters will do), but instead of admiring his handiwork he turned toward the home dugout and exulted with his teammates. It took him nearly 10 seconds to reach first base.

Some Dodgers took exception to this, raising enough ruckus in their own dugout that Grisham acknowledged it as he rounded third. Perhaps in response, he bounded atop home plate with both feet, raising the temperature to the point that plate ump Mark Ripperger warned the Dodgers to remain in their dugout.

”They wanted me to run and that was really about it,” Grisham said after the game in the San Diego Union-Tribune. “They told me to get going a little sooner. That was it.”

Except that wasn’t it.

After the game, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said this: ”I don’t mind guys admiring a homer. Certainly it’s a big game, big hit. Really like the player. But I just felt that to kind of overstay at home, certainly against a guy like Clayton, who’s got the respect of everyone in the big leagues and what he’s done in this game, I just took exception to that. I think there’s a certain respect you give a guy if you homer against him.”

Once again, we’re faced with dissonance from an old-school sport being forced into a new-school box. Roberts has plenty of ground on which to base his argument. Throughout baseball history, respect is an earned commodity, achieved over time through one’s play, behavior and character. By that measure, there’s nobody more respected in the modern game than Kershaw. For a second-year player—who was 12 years old when Kershaw made his big league debut, it should be pointed out—to style in the batter’s box after besting so venerated an opponent is, in many eyes, wrong.

An example of this mentality was recounted in The Baseball Codes:

Admiring one’s own longball isn’t all that sets pitchers off. When Phillies rookie Jimmy Rollins flipped his bat after hitting a home run off St. Louis reliever Steve Kline in 2001, the Cardinals pitcher went ballis­tic, screaming as he followed Rollins around the bases. “I called him every name in the book, tried to get him to fight,” said Kline. The pitcher stopped only upon reaching Philadelphia third baseman Scott Rolen, who was moving into the on-deck circle and alleviated the situation by assuring him that members of the Phillies would take care of it internally.

“That’s fucking Little League shit,” said Kline after the game. “If you’re going to flip the bat, I’m going to flip your helmet next time. You’re a rookie, you respect this game for a while. . . . There’s a code. He should know better than that.”

Hell, it can even happen within the fabric of one’s own team. Take a story former AL MVP Al Rosen told me:

“I played behind Kenny Keltner, and when I went to spring training, the only time in the batting cage I got good pitches to hit was if there were other rookies there. The older guys were protecting Keltner. You had 10 swings or five swings—set by whoever was head cheese on the ballclub—and if you had five swings you didn’t get a good ball to hit. None of those older pitchers were going to get the ball in there so you could hit one hard. So you would struggle. All of a sudden a guy decides he’s going to start working on a split-finger or he’s going to start working on his slider. …

“You’d have to ask one of the coaches to hit you ground balls, and every time I walked out there, Keltner would show up and he would want to take ground balls. So I would go to the outfield and shag. It was a message: “Don’t mess with my position.”

Rosen’s solution was not to knock Keltner down a notch, but to show up hours early with other young players and run their own BP sessions.

For his part, Kershaw held no public animosity against Grisham, saying in an MLB.com report: “I’m not going to worry about their team. Let him do what he wants.”

This is what it’s come down to, then. In civil society, we expect youngsters to defer to their elders. The intern in an office does not speak to the CEO as if he or she were a peer. Baseball once hewed tightly to this norm, but, as with many areas of the American landscape, norms are falling away in increasingly rapid fashion.

Baseball, though, has long held itself as different than other sports—slower, more deliberate. Behavior that would fly elsewhere had no place on a ballfield.

That, though, is changing, spurred no doubt by the rapidity with which baseball’s popularity has been surpassed by the NFL and NBA. Let the Kids Play is a direct result, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

But for those like Dave Roberts—hardly a hard-liner about anything, but with a firm sense of right and wrong—yielding their position is a difficult task. They’re going to have to, though, and soon. This is the new face of baseball—hopefully, say the folks in the marketing department, for the better.  

1
Celebrations

Well, That’s A Celebration We Haven’t Seen Before

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Now that we’re in the full throes of Let the Kids Play, the kids are playing more than ever. On one hand, we have Fernando Tatis Jr. swinging 3-0 for a late-game, blowout grand slam, which seemed to coalesce public opinion about just how ludicrous some of baseball’s unwritten rules can be.

On the other hand, Tatis was actually playing the game. MLB’s marketing slogan was, at the time of its release, geared more toward allowing a greater degree of celebration into the game. Bat flips and whatnot.

It is in that vein that we bring you Trevor Bauer, who celebrated a strikeout on Monday by pretending to open a beer on the mound. Bauer has long been outspoken about his support for emotional displays on the field, be they from pitchers or hitters. This, though, was so much more than that.

Prior to his pantomime, Bauer wrote the word “BUDS” on the back on the mound with his toe. What did it all mean?

It started on Aug. 14, when the Reds tweeted about Sonny Gray setting a team record with 45 strikeouts over his first five starts. Bauer’s succinct response in accepting a challenge: “Hold my beer.”

That was all it took. Because we live in a marketing-driven world and because Bauer is extremely online, Budweiser replied accordingly.

The guess here is that Bauer would have engaged with far less provocation. As it was, he jumped all over this corporate offering.

This, then, is how we end up with “BUDS” on the back of the mound …

… and with Bauer opening an imaginary beer to celebrate his 46th strikeout over five starts. (By game’s end, Bauer would have eight whiffs, and 49 on the season.

As it happened, his opponent that day was the Milwaukee Brewers. Could they be mad? Probably, but given that the pitcher’s pantomime had everything to do with Budweiser and nothing to do with them, it’s difficult to see this going much further. (No sign yet of actual Cincinnati Buds beer cans, as far as I can tell.)

Let the kids play. Then let them drink. Sometimes at the same time.

Update 8/27: The Buds have arrived.

2
Celebrations, Pandemic Baseball

Friends Don’t Let Friends Showboat

Posted on by Jason Turbow

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.

Hitting home runs and crashing into catchers and 100-mph fastballs are ferocious things, but baseball is also a goddamned soap opera. For a sport filled with testosterone (both natural and otherwise), the amount of time guys spend on interpersonal drama is astounding. Designation as a professional athlete does not inure one to a well-placed emotional jab. And just like real life, if that jab comes from someone considered to be a close friend, it’s all the more painful. And if it takes time to retaliate for such a jab, then time is taken.

Rick Sutcliffe and Pedro Guerrero first became teammates in 1974, as 18-year-olds in the Dodgers organization, at Single-A Bellingham, Washington. Three years later, both were at Triple-A Albuquerque, as roommates and close friends. “When he didn’t have any money, I used to loan him money,” Sutcliffe told the Chicago Tribune. “I used to loan him my car. He used to ride around town in my car, and that’s how he met his wife.”

They remained friendly after Sutcliffe was traded to Cleveland after the 1981 season, then joined the Cubs in ’84. In 1987, however, things changed. In a game at Wrigley Field, Guerrero crushed a Sutcliffe pitch onto Waveland Avenue for a solo home run. It was hardly damaging, as the Cubs still led, 9-3, but it was Guerrero’s response that got under the pitcher’s skin.

Guerrero stood in the batter’s box and watched his home run until it left the stadium. Then he waved it bye-bye. With his team down by six runs. With his good friend on the mound.

Sutcliffe looked toward the plate in disbelief, shocked that someone he felt so close to could show him up like that. He responded by motioning with his arms and shouting for Guererro to get moving.

“I don’t say nothing to you when you strike my butt out,” Guerreo spat back, and went into less of a home-run trot than a home-run saunter, strolling languidy around the bases as Sutcliffe watched, seething.

“For a friend to embarrass me like that . . . maybe I better re-examine just how good a friend he is,” said Sutcliffe after the game. For his part, Guerrero insisted that there was nothing personal behind his actions, that it was just his style. He even went so far as to say, “I hope he will forget about it.”

Sutcliffe didn’t forget about it.

The two next faced each other 10 months later, in June, 1988, also at Wrigley Field. With runners on first and second, Sutcliffe walked Guerrero on four pitches, aiming the fourth offering just under his chin. “They were roommates in the minor leagues, and Sutcliffe even let him use his car,” said Cubs first baseman Mark Grace, looking back. “He said, ‘Now you’re going to do that to me? Here you go, son.’ ”

Guerrero glowered at the pitcher, stepped slowly from the batter’s box and tossed his bat toward the Dodgers dugout. The two started yelling at each other and then charged, though they were separated by other players before they could connect.

After the game, Sutcliffe was terse. “I ain’t got nothing to say about that,” he said in a Tribune report. “I take care of those things myself. It’s the same old thing.”

Sutcliffe’s message seemed lost on Guerrero. “I don’t know what his problem is,” said the Dodgers star after the game, adding that he’d done nothing to show the pitcher up.

Lesson not learned.

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Celebrations, Pandemic Baseball

‘Hey Bat Boy, Come Get Oliver’

Posted on by Jason Turbow

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.”

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Celebrations, Pandemic Baseball

Fair Or Foul, Take Your Base

Posted on by Jason Turbow

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.

Outfielder Darrin Jackson: “I’ve got an interesting story from 1988. At that time, Goose Gossage (I’m giving you names here because it was a learning experience) was closing for us with the Chicago Cubs.

One of the unwritten rules you learn the tough way as a rookie is, when you hit a ball off a veteran like Goose Gossage, either fair or foul, if it’s going to be way out of there, you don’t stand there watching it. You don’t stand there and say, “Is it fair or is it foul, fair or foul … oh, it’s foul.”

That’s bad luck for you as a young hitter, because someone like Goose Gossage is standing right there staring at you while you watch the ball. If it’s that close, you run. Well, that’s what Ron Gant [then in his rookie season, with Atlanta] did, and Ron Gant didn’t run. The next pitch was in his ribs. That was definitely a learning experience for Ron Gant, I would have to say.

If it’s foul by 100 feet, you stand there, that’s fine. Admire a foul strike. But when it’s on the border, veterans will frown upon it, especially if it’s some young kid standing there watching the ball. Run the bases.

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