Tag: baseball

Articles, Everybody Joins a Fight

The Unwritten Rules of Baseball Fights

Posted on by Jason Turbow

The media rarely expresses fascination with baseball’s unwritten rules with quite the same fervor as it does shortly following a Code-based incident. Thus, 41,600 results for a Google search of “Nyjer Morgan” and “unwritten rules.”

Some, however, even manage to look beyond the momentary fireworks to examine the bigger picture.

Such was the case with ESPN’s Patrick Hruby, who last week discussed the unwritten rules for baseball fights. For a 500-word summary, he pretty much nailed it.

The main Code tenets upon which he touches:

Everyone fights
Key statement: “Unless you’re playing clubhouse cards with Bobby Bonilla and Rickey Henderson, on-field attendance is mandatory.”
Key thesis: “More people means more grabbing, pulling, pushing and holding each other back in a big, harmless sea of sunflower seed-spitting humanity; by contrast, nobody leaving the dugout would mean hitter versus pitcher, unrestrained, exchanging dangerous blow after dangerous blow. In essence, a hockey fight.”
Baseball Codes tie-in: Chapter 22: Everybody Joins a Fight

Look angry
Key statement: “True pros know that the safe dissipation of bad baseball blood is a lot like an ancient scapegoat rite. Ya gotta honor appearances.”
Key thesis: Hruby brings up a moment that was also touched upon in The Baseball Codes, involving Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. From TBC: “Derek Jeter once took heat from teammate Chad Curtis for laughing with Seattle’s Alex Rodriguez as the field cleared after a fight between the Yankees and the Mariners in 1999. The pair’s main mistake wasn’t joking around instead of fighting—it was failing to look more serious as they did so.”

Hruby also touches on some tenets that have been raised in recent baseball fights. From the Reds-Cardinals fight in which Johnny Cueto donned his kickboxing cleats:

Keep it clean
Key statement: “Baseball players have bats. They also wear spikes. Two things you almost never see in basebrawls? Stickwork and stomping.”

And from the Nyjer Morgan-Florida Marlins fight:

Coaches fight at their peril
Key statement: “For every Pat Listach, the Nationals third base coach who pinned Marlins pitcher Chris Volstad in the brawl Tuesday night, there’s a Don Zimmer.”

Good stuff.

– Jason

2
Sign stealing

Lincecum Stops Tipping; Loss Streak Ends

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Last week, we discussed the possibility that Tim Lincecum was having his pitches stolen by the Diamondbacks—in particular Stephen Drew, leading from second base.

In the first inning, the Giants’ broadcast crew homed in on Drew giving two indicators that at the very least looked remarkably like he was feeding signs to the guy at the plate, Adam LaRoche. (Watch it here.)

LaRoche capitalized, hitting a three-run homer.

After some prodding from the coaching staff, Lincecum altered his delivery, bringing his hands closer to his body, making it more difficult for a baserunner to peer in at his grip.

It worked well; following the three-run first, the pitcher allowed only one run over his final five frames, none over the last three. Looking at his final numbers for August—0-5 with a 7.82 ERA—it’s hardly a stretch to think that similar tipping might have been a factor for far longer than the game in which it first came to light.

I caught up with Lincecum at AT&T Park last week, and he explained the situation in a bit more detail—while maintaining a steadfast reluctance to accuse the Diamondbacks of anything untoward.

What is it exactly that you did to throw them off the scent?
I moved my hands closer to my body to make it harder for them to see (the grip). The pitching coach, somebody notices it . . . When things like that happen and someone can see it right off the bat, and it’s so blatant like that, you have no choice but to do something about it.

Is stuff like that always on your radar?
Yes and no. Sometimes it will be. Sometimes I’ll be going through grooves where it won’t even enter my mind, and it won’t even be a factor. But there are other times where you have to think about it. I try not to make it too big a factor for me, where it’s taking away from my pitching game, but I want to be aware of it.

Have you ever gone through a stretch where you’ve inadvertently been tipping pitches?
Not that I know of. Not so far.

This seems like less a retaliatory offense than something you simply adjust to and move on.
It’s one of those things where, if you can get a team’s signs, and you have them, why not take advantage? It’s smart on their part. Baseball is a game of adjustments, and I had to make some.

So did those adjustments work? The line from Lincecum’s following start, against Colorado: eight innings, five hits, one walk, nine strikeouts, one earned run and a victory—his first since July.

– Jason

1
Nyjer Morgan, Retaliation

Morgan Not Exactly Repentant

Posted on by Jason Turbow

With a near-certain suspension in his future on the heels of a litany of on-field malfeasance this week, Nyjer Morgan didn’t exactly back down.

“Everyone kind of blew it out of proportion and put it on Morgan,” he told MLB.com. “I knocked down the catcher, I took my dose and everybody is blowing it way out of proportion, which I don’t understand. I guess baseball isn’t used to seeing this anymore—good old-fashioned hard-nose baseball.”

While he has a point—his reaction to getting hit by Marlins starter Chris Volstad, in retaliation for bowling over catcher Brett Hayes, was entirely appropriate—but Morgan is overlooking the other basic tenets of this tale.

As a player on a rampage—instigating two home-plate collisions, one wildly inappropriate, the other mildly so; two separate incidents involving fans, one of which earned him a seven-day suspension; a public rebuke from his manager and an ensuing spat; and initiating an all-hands fight on the field, after which he emerged faux-triumphantly, arms raised and shirt torn, even though he had taken more abuse than anybody—Morgan has a lot to be introspective about.

Focusing on the one thing he did last week that wasn’t offensive isn’t the way to go about it.

Suspension looming.

– Jason

3
Chris Volstad, Fights, Nyjer Morgan, Retaliation, Running Into the Catcher

It Really Hasn’t Been a Good Week for Nyjer Morgan

Posted on by Jason Turbow

There has to be a wager involved with this, somehow. Why else would a major league player attempt to go from zero-to-Alex Rodriguez in a bizarre and misguided weeklong quest to become baseball’s Most Hated Player?

World, meet Nyjer Morgan. You might not have known him in mid-August, but you certainly do now.

Over the last seven days, he’s gotten into it with fans, his own manager and various members of the opposition, both as the player delivering punishment and the one receiving it.

Had he paid a lick of attention to baseball’s unwritten rules along the way, virtually all of it could have been avoided.

He’s in today’s news for yesterday’s fight, but Morgan’s slide began on Aug. 25, when he threw a ball into the stands in Philadelphia. Some say he threw it to the fans, some say he threw it at the fans. Morgan claims it was a big misunderstanding (a tack corroborated by at least one member of the crowd), but the league quickly levied a suspension for his actions, which is currently under appeal. (The piece of Code he ignored: Never engage with hecklers. It rarely ends well.)

On Aug. 27, Morgan got picked off base in the eighth inning of a close game against St. Louis, which proved particularly costly when the batter, Willie Harris, subsequently hit a home run. The Nationals lost, 4-2. Morgan was confronted after the game by Nationals manager Jim Riggleman, and dropped from leadoff to eighth in the batting order.

His response: The following day, he attempted to level Cardinals catcher Bryan Anderson in a play at the plate, despite the fact that Anderson had his back to the play and was moving in the opposite direction. Morgan was so focused on his target that he veered away from the plate to make contact, and in fact never scored. (Code: Run into catchers only when a slide would lead to a likely out. Even more importantly, never let personal vendettas get in the way of your team’s success.)

Riggleman was angry enough about it to call his player out in public, after apologizing to both Anderson and Tony La Russa. Morgan, he said, as reported by Nationals Daily News, did an “unprofessional thing,” and, indicating that lessons would be learned, “you’ll never see it again” from him. (The manager wasn’t quite accurate on this point.)

Riggleman then benched Morgan for the series finale, under the auspices that he had become too prominent a target to safely take the field.

On Aug. 30, Morgan responded to Riggleman. “I guess he perceived it as some nasty play with the intentions of trying to hurt somebody before coming to me and asking me about the situation, which was very unacceptable,” he told the Washington Post. “But on my half, I’m not going to go ahead and throw fuel on the fire. I’m going to try to be as professional as I can about the situation.”

It’s frequently the case, of course, that when players feel the need to proclaim the fact that they’re being “professional,” they’re actually anything but. (Code violation: Never call out your manager in public.)

In fact, Morgan cited the unwritten rules in his own defense, saying that Riggleman “just basically did a cardinal sin. You don’t blast your player in the papers.” (This is true, unless the player’s behavior has deteriorated to the point where the manager feels he has few other options. )

It didn’t take long for Morgan to stir further controversy. In the 10th inning of a scoreless game on Aug. 31, he ran into Marlins catcher Brett Hayes with enough force to place him on the disabled list for the remainder of the season with an injured shoulder. While Morgan didn’t go out of his way to reach his target this time, consensus held that he would have been safe—with the winning run, no less—had he slid. (See previous Code citation about running into catchers. The Marlins won it with a run in the bottom of the frame.)

In light of Morgan’s previous indiscretion with a catcher, the play seemed like the act of a guy hoping for someone to try to knock the chip off his shoulder. (Watch it here.)

When he took the field for the bottom of the inning, Morgan again got into it with fans, this time being caught on tape cussing them out. (See previous unwritten-rule citation regarding fan interactions.)

Any one of these things can constitute a distraction in the clubhouse. The sum of them, especially coming as they did in the span of a week, reads like the linescore of a borderline sociopath.

Which brings us to yesterday’s firestorm.

Morgan was hit in the fourth inning by Marlins starter Chris Volstad—clear retaliation for his treatment of Hayes the day before. Not content to let it end there, Morgan subsequently stole second and third on the next two pitches, while his team trailed by 11 runs in the fourth inning.

This is a clear violation of the unwritten rules, although under ordinary circumstances, a player’s own teammates care more about him staying put in that type of situation than does the opposition. Morgan’s steals, however, were an unequivocal message to the Marlins, conveying that he neither appreciated their treatment of him, nor respected their right to do what they did. (Code: If you send a message to the other team, expect one in return.)

“That was garbage,” he told reporters after the game. “That’s just bad baseball. It’s only the fourth inning. If they’re going to hold me on, I’m going to roll out. The circumstances were kind of out of whack, but the game was too early. It was only the fourth inning. If it happened again, I’d do it again. It’s one of those things where I’m a hard-nosed player. I’m grimey. And I just wanted to go out there and try to protect myself. I didn’t want to get outside the box. There’s bit a little bit of controversy surrounding the kid lately. But it’s just one of things.”

That’s one way to look at it. Another way is that “the kid” essentially gave the Marlins little choice but to reinforce their point. Which they did, when Volstad threw a pitch behind him two innings later.

“I think that’s the only reason we tried to go after him a second time,” said Marlins third baseman Wes Helms in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “Since he stole the bases, I think it pumped us up a little more and got to Volstad a little bit. . . . I cannot stand when a guy shows somebody up or show the integrity of the game up to the fans or whatever. There’s just no place in baseball for that. In my opinion, you’re going to get what’s coming to you if you do that. Tonight, it was time we had to show him we weren’t going to put up with the way he was treating us, but also with the way he was trying to take bases down 10 runs. After he got hit, you know why he did it. . . . I can’t really say anything good about a guy that doesn’t play the game the right way and doesn’t play for the integrity of the game.”

It’s not like Morgan needed to further prove a willingness to put his personal agenda ahead of the integrity of the game, but he did. After Volstad’s pitch sailed behind him, Morgan charged the mound, and a rarity in baseball occurred—a fight that involved actual fighting.

The Marlins—particularly first baseman Gaby Sanchez—couldn’t wait to get their hands on Morgan, and players quickly piled up near the mound. (Watch it here.)

Other accounts offer copious details of the fight. One pertinent example doesn’t even involve Morgan, but third base coach Pat Listach, who was among the first people in the scrum. Baseball’s Code mandates that fighting is left to the players, with coaches and managers serving to fill the role of peacemakers. That was clearly not Listach’s intent, and he may well be disciplined by the league for his actions.

Should Morgan be given any sort of pass in this situation, it’s for the fact that his response to being drilled—the stealing of back-to-back bases—fell within the boundaries of reason; as he said, it was only the fourth inning and the Marlins were holding him on, which is frequently taken as a tacit green light for eager baserunners.

Also, even more importantly, the Marlins took their shot earlier in the game. Between Morgan’s steals and the injury to his catcher, Volstad can hardly be blamed for wanting to get in another blow—but Morgan’s assumption that it was one too many is not unreasonable. In the middle of the fight, Riggleman could be seen mouthing the words “one time” to Florida manager Edwin Rodriguez, indicating the number of retaliatory attempts to which he felt the Marlins were entitled. (“We decide when we run,” said Riggleman in the Sun-Sentinel. “The Florida Marlins will not decide when we run.”)

“I understand they had to get me back a little bit,” said Morgan in the Post. “It’s part of the game. . . . I guess they took it the wrong way. He hit me the first time, so be it. But he hit two other of our guys?” (Volstad did indeed hit three batters on the day.) “Alright, cool. But then he whips another one behind me, we got to go. I’m just sticking up for myself and just defending my teammates. I’m just going out there and doing what I have to do.”

Doing what he had to do, of course, is up for interpretation. Saying that there’s a case to be made for Morgan’s viewpoint on the incidents leading up to the fight does nothing to discourage the sentiment that the guy has been wildly, unassailably, dangerously out of line for the better part of a week.

Guys like Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez can flaunt the unwritten rules at their discretion; their jobs are safe, so long as they continue to produce.

When it’s a leadoff hitter with a .317 OBP, who led the league in being caught stealing last year and is on the way to doing it again, the margins are considerably tighter.

Watch out, Nyjer Morgan. There aren’t many people in your corner right about now.

– Jason

Update: Gaby Sanchez now says that the Marlins were not “really holding (Morgan) on,” prior to his fourth-inning stolen bases. For what it’s worth.

Update (9-03-10): MLB has ruled. Morgan will be suspended for eight games, in addition to the seven that had already been handed out (which is currently under appeal). Also suspended were, from the Marlins, Volstad (six games), pitcher Alex Sanabia (who must have done some heavy and unnecessary hitting in the scrum, for five), Sanchez (three), Edwin Rodriguez (one). Pitcher Jose Veras was fined.

Suspended from the Nationals were pitcher Doug Slaten (probably for furthering tensions by hitting Sanchez in response to the first baseman’s clothesline tackle of Morgan to begin the fight) and Listach (three games each), and Jim Riggleman (two games). Riggleman and Listach also were fined.

Update (9-16-10): Morgan’s suspension was reduced to eight games.

39
Matt Diaz, Showing Players Up

When Bad Things Happen to Good Players

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Chalk one up for the good guys.

Matt Diaz hit a game-tying, two-run homer for the Braves on Sunday, then flipped his bat in celebration. In cases like this, players are usually granted a degree of leeway, for celebratory purposes.

A degree.

It wasn’t until he rounded the bases and took a gander at exactly how far he’d flipped it, however, that Diaz realized his actions might have been a bit too enthusiastic.

“Coming around third you see the dugout and you see the bat boy picking up the bat over by the dugout, like wow, did I do that?” Diaz told the Atlanta Journal Constitution after the game. “I didn’t know how far. It was ugly. There was a Sammy Sosa hop involved, with a Bret Boone bat flip, with a Paul O’Neill head-down-not-look-at-it but then look at it later.” (Watch it here.)

It wasn’t quite an apology to the pitcher, Leo Nunez, but it was certainly an admission of guilt—which can go a long way toward mollifying sensitive feelings, especially since the teams play again this weekend.

Then again, Diaz and Nunez were once teammates in Kansas City, and Diaz thinks he has a handle on the pitcher’s state of mind.

“Leo is a high emotional pitcher anyway, and when he has a big strikeout, he’ll let you know it,” he said. “Those guys usually understand guys who get caught up in emotion and do something like I did yesterday.”

It wasn’t recognition of the Code quite along the lines exhibited by Michael Saunders earlier in the year, but the guy dropped a Paul O’Neill reference. What more can one reasonably ask?

– Jason

2
Adam LaRoche, Sign stealing, Stephen Drew, Tim Lincecum

Were the D-Backs on to Lincecum? It Sure Looks That Way

Posted on by Jason Turbow

The primary topic in San Francisco these days concerns Tim Lincecum and his disappearing dominance. His velocity’s down, his ERA’s up—way up—and his confidence is so shaken that he changed the mechanics he’s been using since he was a teenager in Washington state.

Another possibility came to light last week: His pockets are being picked.

After Adam LaRoche hit a three-run homer off Lincecum in the first inning of Friday’s game, Giants broadcasters Duane Kuiper and F.P. Santangelo focused in on the guy who had been at second base, Stephen Drew.

The video evidence is difficult to refute. It shows Drew tugging at the brim of his cap before the first pitch of the at-bat (a likely indicator for pitch type or location), then turning his head to the left, toward second base, before the third pitch—on which LaRoche connected. (Watch it here.)

Later, the broadcast showed replays of Drew in the dugout, mimicking Lincecum’s delivery for teammates, ostensibly to show his teammates what the pitcher was giving away.

There are two possibilities here if Drew was, in fact, tipping off LaRoche. He might have been reading catcher Buster Posey, which appears to be the case for the pitch that was hit for the homer. All it takes is a glance at a catcher’s setup to indicate whether the pitch will be inside or outside, which is precisely what Drew did.

The other option is that he was stealing signs directly from Lincecum. In May, I discussed this very topic with former big leaguer Morgan Ensberg. Here’s what he told me:

You’re leading off at second base; estimate you’re probably around 30 feet from the pitcher. If the pitcher hasn’t been taught to protect it, you can see everything that’s in his glove. You can see his hands, you can see his fingers, you can see the ball, you can see the seams.

Generally, pitchers will hold ball in same spot in the glove. On certain pitches you can see some red from the seam, but on other pitches you don’t see the seam. You might see something in the way he holds his glove. All this is just patterns. I’ve been at second base 100,000 times in my life, and learned to pick up patterns in the way a pitcher grips a baseball.

This was clearly on Lincecum’s mind, as well. Shortly after LaRoche’s homer, he tweaked his delivery to move his pitching hand closer to his body, in an effort to better impede a baserunner’s view of his grip.

Did it work? Following the three-run first, the pitcher allowed only one run over his final five frames, none over the last three—something he hasn’t done since his last win, on July 30.

In Arizona’s post-game clubhouse, denials abounded when players were confronted with questions about the video evidence—some delivered more half-heartedly than others.

Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson denied that Drew had done anything untoward, while simultaneously positing that it was a tactic at which his team needs to improve.

“Actually, I don’t think we’ve done a very good job at it . . .” he said in an MLB.com report. “It’s a hard thing to master because there’s a lot to it. And I can tell you last night that wasn’t the case, OK? . . . It doesn’t mean we won’t try tonight, but last night that was not the case.”

Drew, in the Arizona Republic: “Nope. Didn’t do that. Sure didn’t.”

LaRoche, however, hewed closer to the likely truth, when asked if he got any assistance on the pitch he hit. “If I did,” he said, “I wouldn’t repeat that to anybody.”

Of course, players are taught to deny everything, because that’s what public perception mandates. On the field, however, they’re simply playing baseball.

Sign stealing isn’t just tolerated, it’s expected. Even Giants manager Bruce Bochy dismissed the allegations, telling MLB.com that “all teams do that.”

The Giants’ concern after the game had little to do with Drew or LaRoche, and everything to do with making sure that Lincecum conceals his grip and Posey gives away no unnecessary clues to the opposition.

Lincecum makes his first start since then tonight, against the Rockies. We’ll see how well the lesson’s been learned.

– Jason

1
Bryan Anderson, Nyjer Morgan, Running Into the Catcher

Morgan’s Takeout Attempt Stirs Frustration in Both Dugouts

Posted on by Jason Turbow

It’s said that in the middle of a bang-bang play, where rational thought is subverted in favor of pure instinct, a man’s true colors can be seen.

If this is true, it doesn’t reflect well on Nyjer Morgan.

In the eighth inning of Saturday’s game against St. Louis, Morgan should have scored from first base on a Willie Harris double—which would have been the Nationals’ fourth run of the inning and 12th run of the game, and which would have given them a seven-run lead.

That Morgan was waived around in the first place, with his team holding a six-run lead, was acceptable, as he was so clearly safe that first baseman Albert Pujols, serving as the cutoff man, didn’t even bother to throw home.

However, with catcher Bryan Anderson venturing up the line toward first, his back to the plate and moving away from the play, Morgan inexplicably lowered his shoulder and went out of his way to barrel into him.

So far out of his way, in fact, that he never touched the plate. When Nats catcher Ivan Rodriguez, who had just scored, grabbed Morgan at the edge of the cutout and spun him around to double back, he violated the rule stipulating that players can not be touched by a teammate in the middle of a play. The run was subsequently wiped off the board. (Watch it all here.)

That, however, was the least of Washington’s worries.

How serious was the display? One of a manager’s primary responsibilities is to shield his players from undue scrutiny, refraining from leveling public blame even when he’s making a pastime of tearing them apart behind closed doors.

Nationals manager Jim Riggleman didn’t even offer a pretense of protecting Morgan. After apologizing to both Anderson and Tony La Russa after the game, he delivered a number of choice sentiments about his center fielder to the press. Among them, as reported by Nationals Daily News, was that Morgan did an “unprofessional thing,” and, indicating that lessons will be learned, that “you’ll never see it again” from him.

Most interestingly, Riggleman chose not to skirt the fact that La Russa will almost certainly be motivated to retaliate, and went so far as to say that he’d do the same thing were it his player at the wrong end of the collision.

“I can’t minimize [the incident], because if I take the approach that there’s nothing wrong with it, we’re gonna get people hurt on the field,” he said. “There’s gotta be retaliation. If Nyjer was playing today, he’d get hit. If an opposing player did that to my catcher and came to the plate, he’d get hit.”

At least Riggleman had his player’s interests in mind on Sunday, when he pulled him from the lineup for the teams’ final meeting until 2011 (at which point there’s a decent chance that La Russa will no longer be involved).

In the interim, the St. Louis manager appreciated Riggleman’s approach.

“They handled it internally, and they made it clear to us that it was a mistake,” he said in an MLB.com report. “The Nats did what they had to do to defuse it. Guys make mistakes. I made it a point not to say anything after the game. I didn’t say a word.”

Communication can go a long way in this type of situation. In 2006, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire apologized to Red Sox skipper Terry Francona after Torii Hunter swung at a 3-0 pitch with his team holding an 8-1 lead in the eighth inning. An act that any pitcher could justify as retaliation-worthy was subsequently nullified, and no further action was taken.

In this case, we won’t know until next season how much weight Riggleman’s apology will hold.

We do know, however, that an off-season is hardly too long to wait for someone with retaliation on his mind.

– Jason

7
No-Hitter Etiquette

Don’t Talk During a No-Hitter—a Rule That Never Gets Old

Posted on by Jason Turbow

In this, the Year of the No-Hitter, there’s been an awful lot of talk about appropriate etiquette during the course of one.

In this space alone, we’ve discussed pulling a pitcher (not once, but three times); changing things up, and in more than one way; sending a pinch-hitter to break one up, even when the game’s out of hand; bunting to break one up (twice); umpires’ roles—particularly as they pertain to robbing a pitcher of a perfect game; and what constitutes appropriate behavior, up to and including extra efforts. Mostly, however, we’ve discussed discussing them—in broadcasts, on message boards (in various permutations), on blogs and on Twitter.

This week, the concept came up again, twice. In the aftermath of Rich Harden being pulled from his own no-hitter, HardballTalk’s D.J. Short took serious grief on his own message boards for posting entries as the game unfolded, thus inexorably jinxing the efforts of the Rangers pitching staff.

Or so certain posters would have us believe. A small sampling:

So you’re a professional baseball writer, huh? And you use that hyphenated word while the event is still in progress?

Changing the title after the fact doesn’t undo the jinx you laid on the Rangers with your irresponsible use of the term “no-hitter” during the game. There are a thousand or so ways to dance around the term and still get the point across. Maybe someday, after you’ve been around a while, you’ll understand that the people who care enough about this game to read this blog know that, and respect and honor that tradition, and fear the consequences of violating it.

I would say that anyone that says jinxes don’t exist should probably be writing about somehing other than baseball.

Short took it in stride, publishing a good-natured screed about why, exactly, such things are essentially a bunch of hokum.

“My apologies if you hate it, but I just refuse to believe that if I mention the event in progress—as I did here on the blog on Tuesday night—it will have some cosmic effect on the actual game on the field,” he wrote. “That’s positively bananas.”

To back up his point, Short mentioned that similar HardballTalk coverage was offered for the five no-hitters already in the books this season, none of which were broken up. Add in MLB Network’s breakaway live coverage when no-hitters reach the late innings, and Twitter, and the panoply of message boards, and the possibilities for a jinx are manifold.

Short: “We live in a world where no-hitters in progress are mentioned more frequently than ever before, yet we have had more no-no’s this season than there have been since 1990.”

It’s a great point, and it’s clearly on the writer’s mind for personal reasons.

Not so for FanHouse’s Ed Price, who dropped nearly 1,000 words on no-hitter etiquette based on nothing more timely than the fact that it’s an interesting story.

On one hand, he wrote, John Flaherty of the YES Network, a former big league catcher, mentioned Javier Vazquez’s would-be no-hitter on the air (something Flaherty admits he would never have done from the dugout).

On the other hand, Tampa Bay Rays broadcaster Dewayne Staats refrained from using the phrase during the entirety of Matt Garza’s no-no on July 26.

“I framed it in every way possible without actually saying it,” he told the St. Petersburg Times. “Fans start to catch on that something is happening. At one point, I said, ‘Garza has faced the minimum and has allowed only one baserunner and that came on a walk.’ So I’m essentially saying it without saying it.”

The reasons for not mentioning it are clear: Listeners respond to the concept of jinxes, much like the readers of HardballTalk. This goes all the way back to Red Barber, who, broadcasting the first televised World Series in 1947, mentioned on the air that Yankees pitcher Bill Bevens was working on a no-hitter.

“There was a hue and cry that night,” said the broadcaster. “Yankee fans flooded the radio station with angry calls and claimed I had jinxed Bevens. Some of my fellow announcers on sports shows that evening said I had done the most unsportsmanlike broadcast in history.”

For those broadcasters who do mention it, however, the reasoning is even more simple.

“If you want people to stay tuned, you should probably mention, ‘Hey, hang in there, don’t go anywhere—guy’s throwing a no-hitter,’ ” said player-turned-broadcaster Steve Lyons.

Of course, points out FanHouse, that doesn’t always work. Two batters after Flaherty mentioned the phrase “no-hitter” on June 6, Vazquez allowed his first hit of the night—a home run.

“People get fired up—’Oh, you jinxed it . . .’ ” said Flaherty. “But I’m not that powerful.”

– Jason

1
Felix Pie, Mark Buehrle, Sign stealing

Sign Stealing on the South Side?

Posted on by Jason Turbow

As White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle headed to the mound for the sixth inning against Baltimore Wednesday, he had more than just pitching on his mind.

Perhaps it’s that he’d given up two runs to the Orioles in the previous frame. Maybe it was because outfielder Felix Pie was 5-for-7 with a walk to that point over the series’ two games, and Buehrle was fed up.

Or maybe he doesn’t like players stealing his team’s signs.

The Baltimore Sun reported that Buehrle started yelling at Pie (and, by proximity, it appears, Corey Patterson, as well) as he was heading back to the dugout—an exchange that several Orioles players confirmed had to do with the stealing of signs, and the ramifications therein.

How Pie was stealing them was more difficult to discern. He had walked in the fifth, then scored on Matt Wieters’ double, but was never stationed at second base to get a good look at the catcher or the pitcher’s grip on the ball. (While it’s possible to steal signs from first base, it happens far less frequently. Pie could conceivably have been signaling location from there based on the catcher’s setup.)

Prior to that moment, Pie had been all over the basepaths for Baltimore, but the only time he he had been stationed at second, Wieters followed with an inning-ending fly ball.)

Sign stealing from the field of play is an inextricable part of baseball, and occurs with both frequency and consistency throughout the season. The unwritten rules do nothing to prevent somebody from trying to gain this particular edge.

“Stealing signs is part of the game—that’s not the problem,” said Dusty Baker. “The problem is, if you get caught, quit. That’s the deal. If you get caught you have to stop.”

In Buehrle’s case, he or his teammates had clearly seen something amiss, and he took it upon himself to inform the opposition that it was time to put a stop to whatever it was they were doing. It was likely a repeat offense that spurred him to act.

Pie was lucky that it was Buehrle’s barbs that stung him, not his fastball.

“I’d just go up to them and say, ‘Come on, now, you’ve got to be a little bit more discreet—it’s too obvious,’ ” said shortstop Shawon Dunston, discussing his own methods of operation during his playing career. “They just give you a dumb look, but the next time the behavior changes. You’ve got to get every edge and I don’t have a problem with that, but don’t be too obvious. And be prepared to get drilled if you get caught. Period. That’s how it is.”

Jack Morris once took things a step further. Rather than waiting until an inning ended to deliver his message, he simply spun on his heel and, taking steps toward second, informed the started runner that he did not appreciate what was going on.

Then he said, “I’m throwing a fastball and it’s going at him. Make sure you tell him that.”

After doing precisely that, knocking the hitter down, Morris made a second trip toward the runner. “Did you tell him?” he yelled. “Did you?”

– Jason

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Don't Showboat, Jose Bautista, Retaliation

Bautista’s Game-Winning Homer Conveys Message, then he Conveys it Again

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Jose Bautista’s first home run Monday meant little on its own, save for being the slugger’s major league-leading 39th of the season.

His second home run Monday meant a lot more, at least to him.

The difference: What happened in between.

That would be the sixth-inning fastball that Yankees starter Ivan Nova sent spinning toward—and ultimately over—Bautista’s head.

The hitter took it as a response to his earlier bomb. Nova was more likely just wild, considering that it was his first start as a big leaguer. Bautista had words for the right-hander as he approached the mound, Nova didn’t back down at all and benches and bullpens quickly emptied onto the field.

Although no punches were thrown, the incident served as a prelude for an interesting response from Bautista after he hit another home run, in the eighth.

Baseball will tolerate a degree of showboating, so long as it’s in response to a Code violation. Bautista’s reaction to his second home run (the eventual game-winner, hit off of reliever David Robertson) started with a bat flip in conjunction with a glare toward the mound. It ended with one of the slowest home-run trots in the big leagues this season, and some fist pumping upon reaching the plate. (Watch it here.)

In addition is the notion that rookies must be tested, which, admitted Bautista, is what motivated his sixth-inning outburst, at least in part.

“I was just trying to see what kind of reaction I was going to get from him,” he said in the Bergen Record. “I was surprised to see he was pretty defiant. He was walking up toward me and flashing his hands up and started yelling.”

Part of Bautista’s motivation was to use Nova’s response to gauge intent. Despite the pitcher’s repeated assertion (in Spanish) that “I don’t want to hit you,” that, said Bautista, was “when I felt that the pitch was intentional.”

Bautista might have already been angry at a Toronto Star columnist who suggested that his power surge might be artificially fueled, using exactly zero pieces of evidence to back up his claim. (Bautista denied everything.)

Blue Jays fans can only hope that he continues to take out his anger on baseballs across the league.

– Jason

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