Baseball’s unwritten rules are unappealing
Some of them are thankfully fading away
Don’t swing at a 3-0 pitch!
Tony LaRussa, near the end of his second tenure with the Chicago White Sox lost the respect of his player and his team by criticizing Yermin Mercedes for swinging at a 3-0 pitch during a White Sox rout, a pitch Mercedes hit out of the park. That pitch was thrown by a position player Willans Astudillo and the home run gave the Sox a 16-4 lead. It was only three and half seasons ago in May of 2021. That incident defined LaRussa’s old school-ness and is thankfully now a relic of baseballs days that are history.
The old school that LaRussa comes from was overly concerned about ‘showing up’ a team or pitcher. Particularly if the away team was putting a whupping on the home team. It was more acceptable to bludgeon an opponent when beating them in your home ballpark. Swinging at a 3-0 pitch coming from a position player is 100% fine. It would also be fine if that pitch were thrown by an actual member of the pitching staff! Player’s salaries are contingent upon their overall performance and statistics are a big part of that evaluation. With nearly every player in today’s lineup capable of hitting a home run, coming back from six or more runs is not a wild a concept. Swinging at a 3-0 pitch when up 9-3 in the sixth inning in no way shows up the opponent. You want to stop a hitter from hitting a 3-0 pitch for a home run? Don’t throw a batting practice fastball expecting it to be taken!
Not a third time!
And when a player hits home runs in consecutive at-bats it used to be that the player should not swing at the first pitch in the next at-bat. As if playing nice was part of baseball! Fortunately, it rarely happens anyway.
There are many other archaic unwritten rules of baseball that are going away
Sign Stealing
With Pitch-com there’s less worry than ever regarding baserunners doing pitch sign-stealing i.e.… baserunners deciphering catcher’s signs to the pitcher and relaying those signs to batters. It didn’t used to be that way.
To combat pitch sign-stealing the National League in 1961 banned ‘mechanical devices’ at the ballpark, which meant cameras and lenses that could be used to steal signs as was reputedly the case when on October 3, 1951, New York Giant’s Bobby Thomson hit his famous pennant-winning home run off the Dodger’s Ralph Branca. Thomson forever denied getting the sign.
The use of electronic equipment is not specifically forbidden by MLB rules, but in 2001, Sandy Alderson, while serving as executive vice president for baseball operations of MLB, issued a memorandum stating that teams cannot use electronic equipment to communicate with each other during games, especially for the purpose of stealing signs. *Wikipedia
Stealing the third base coach’s signs remains okay, however. Whatever happens on the field is between the players and as provided outside interference is avoided, anything goes.
Bunting to break up a no-hitter
Always regarded as bad form, bunting to break up a no hitter is still looked at with distaste even if the reasons are understood. With today’s starting pitchers rarely pitching beyond the seventh inning, bunting to break up a combined no-hitter seems less egregious. But the score of the game should really dictate the action. Leading 8-0 while the pitcher is throwing a perfect game or no-hitter, bunting with one or two out in the ninth inning does seem a little bush league since the outcome of the game is decided and the purpose should not be to ruin the pitcher’s chance. I say in that situation, swing away, get a hit.
On May 26, 2001, D’Backs Curt Schilling was working on a perfect game vs. the Padres when catcher Ben Davis bunted for a base-hit with one out in the eighth inning. The Padres trailed 2-0 at the time. It was referred to as a ‘the Chicken Bunt in the San Diego Union-Tribune. But at 2-0 the game was far from being over. Getting on base to bring the tying run to the plate was a good baseball play – not breaking an unwritten rule.
If your player gets hit by a pitch after hitting a home run earlier in the game, your pitcher must drill one of the opposing players as soon as possible
This is a leftover unwritten rule that still pops up every now and again but is largely absent from today’s game.
Don’t use your closer in a tie game on the road. This one has all but disappeared since using your team’s best reliever in high leverage situations has won over the quaint idea that you wait for your team to score the go-ahead run before bringing in your closer to shut the door. By waiting, the game might be over already!
There are a few unwritten rules that still make sense
‘Don’t walk the Leadoff’ hitter is an example of solid baseball strategy. It’s a bad thing to do and if you want to call it an unwritten rule, fine. The team issuing that leadoff walk wishes it didn’t happen and there’s no risk in dissing or showing up anyone.
Don’t make the first or third out at third base another good strategy. The player can still score from second on a hit with two outs and might be moved over to third with one out by the batter.
Stealing bases when your team is way ahead late in the game. I think this one is probably the one that’s most still in effect. It is merely stat padding and should be frowned upon. In no way does stealing 2nd or 3rd base with a big lead help your team win the game.
Don’t step on the pitcher’s mound on your way back to the dugout after making an out. My son Gordon was a pitcher and HATED when players did that whether intentionally or not. The mound is a sacred hill. The only reason for a batter to step on the mound is to bug the pitcher.
The hidden ball trick is bush league
But I can’t help but be delighted every time it happens! Watch HOFer Todd Helton do it to Matt Carpenter in 2013. NFL football has some tricky plays, but the hidden ball trick is something unique in all sports. The trickery happened before the play does. Yet it still somehow feels kind of icky.
On our podcast earlier this year Gordon mentioned that showing up players is not a thing like it used to be. Pitchers still try not to visibly react to errors made by their fielders but sometimes it cannot be helped.
Baseball is better off having fewer and fewer unwritten rules.
About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and Substack.com.
I think the "bunting to break up a no-hitter" one might be the most compelling question. (In general, instead of railing about how stupid the unwritten rules are, I like to think of them as moral questions. After all, did they not all come into being for a reason, good or not?) Anyway, on the bunting, my opinion is that if the intent is to break up the no-hitter and it's actually a bad baseball play, there could not be anything more bush league, nothing in worse taste. If it's a somewhat good baseball play, I would still lean towards the player not doing it.
Note that Posnanski, while very much against unwritten rules, does give space for considerations beyond just trying to win a game, like the value of a player going for 4 home runs. So, if these should be respected, shouldn't they be respected from an opponent's point of view, too? Not that you're trying to let the other guy win and set the record, but sportsmanship to me means being aware of the situation and the potential for the record. (A no-hitter is a kind of record.)
If you absolutely have to bunt to try to win the game, even if there's a no-hitter, then I say go for it. Have no problem with it. But I wouldn't expect the bunting player to enjoy doing it. In horse racing, it is customary for the trainer and jockey who spoil a Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes to express regrets afterwards.
I do agree that drilling an innocent party after his pitcher is thought to have intentionally hit one of your teammates is very questionable, and hitting an innocent party because someone on his team has been too good at hitting home runs, wrong. But the more interesting grey area for me is if it's ever o.k. to drill someone because he himself has peeved you off. I cautiously say yes. Or, at the very least, acknowledge that I have wished for this as a fan.
Thanks for the post!
So, "unwritten rules," maybe not. But PCness? Never!
I agree with the concept that unwritten rules are ludicrous, and I cannot believe baseball allowed itself to glorify the fact that its players had such thin skin for so long.
I believe in trying to win always. For instance, if you're in a no-hitter, and you believe bunting is the best way to get on base, do so, even if the score is 10-0 against you. Forget the pitcher's accomplishment. This is professional sports. We're out here for ourselves. It's not bush league to try to get on base, and if it is then why don't we shame hitters for taking ball four in a perfect game? You should've swung through it to give the pitcher the best chance of preserving his individual accomplishment.
That's a silly line of thinking, and I'm not sure how it ever became mainstream. If it's so bush league to try your hardest to get on base, why don't we blame managers for not taking their best players out at the end of no-hitters? After all, we're not trying our hardest, in an effort to preserve an achievement for a player who doesn't even play for us, so why should we leave the stars in the game to risk injury? I'm deliberately bringing up extreme examples, because it highlights the nonsense that comes when actually taking these unwritten rules to their logical extremes.
I feel the same way about all unwritten rules that limit teams from trying their hardest to win, but the same logical extension technique can be applied to lots of other unwritten rules that used to exist in baseball. If celebrating individual accomplishments is so frowned upon, how come we award MVPs and HOF plaques? What a bush league thing to have a Hall of fame. If the hidden ball trick is so bush league, then I guess trying to deke a runner at second base into not knowing where the ball is ought to be frowned upon.
When you apply the same logic as the old unwritten rules to generally accepted baseball scenarios, they begin to split apart at the seams into the blatant hypocrisy they always were. Try your hardest to get on base some times, but not other times. It's okay to celebrate your individual achievements sometimes, but not on the field during the game. It's okay to call timeout mid at bat to try to bother the pitcher, but not okay to step on the pitchers mound to try to bother the pitcher, etc..
I always had a grudge against the unwritten rules. I felt like a conspiracy theorist or something, feeling I was the only one who could see the hypocrisy happening right in front of me. I'm very happy they're beginning to fade. In my opinion, that makes baseball better for everybody.