Unwritten

by Danny Knobler

  By the following June, Olson was the closer on a team that surprised everyone with 87 wins. He was the American League’s Rookie of the Year, and he was named on ballots for both the Cy Young and Most Valuable Player awards.

  His career was off to a fine start, and he would collect 95 saves before he turned 25.

  Oh, and he could get Chili Davis out. Davis was in his thirties by then, an established major-league hitter. But in eight plate appearances against Olson between 1989 and ’91, he had never gotten a hit.

  One day during batting practice, Olson saw Davis approaching him and wanting to talk. Nice guy that he is, Olson said hello.

  Then he felt Dwight Evans behind him. Evans was 39 years old then, and in his final big-league season, the only one he would spend with any team other than the Boston Red Sox. He was an Oriole and he was about to teach Olson a lesson in the unwritten rules.

  “Dwight Evans grabs me by the shirt and drags me away,” Olson remembered years later. “He says, ‘What are you doing?’

  “I’m like, ‘I’m 24 years old, and that’s Chili Davis,’” Olson said.

  “He just wants to see if you’re a nice guy,” Evans said. “If he knows you’re a nice guy, you’re not going to hit him. He’s trying to make friends with you so he’ll know you’re not going to hit him and he can be more comfortable in the box.”

  “Hey,” Olson replied. “I’ll still hit him.”

  Perhaps, but Olson faced Davis two more times before Chili retired. The result: a two-run single and a double.

  Who knows if it had anything to do with feeling more comfortable, but Olson learned that in the generation before his, fraternization between opponents was strongly frowned upon.

  There’s actually a rule against it. It’s not even an unwritten rule. It’s right there in the rulebook, Rule 4.06:

  “Players in uniform shall not address or mingle with spectators, nor sit in the stands before, during, or after a game. No manager, coach, or player shall address any spectator before or during a game. Players of opposing teams shall not fraternize at any time while in uniform.”

  The written rule hasn’t been changed, but the unwritten rules on fraternization sure have been. Get to any big-league game early and you’ll see players from the two teams mingling as one team is finishing batting practice and the other is getting ready to start. Players greet ex-teammates or guys they grew up with or guys who have the same agent or just someone they’ve come to know along the way.

  There are hugs. There are smiles. There are laughs.

  Players go talk to coaches or managers from the other team. Before most games, the two managers will chat amicably.

  And old-timers sitting in the stands shake their heads. The old-timers get even angrier when they see opponents chatting during games.

  It wasn’t always that way.

  “For me, once the game starts, I’m going to battle with you, and I don’t need to be talking to you,” said Juan Samuel, who played 16 years in the major leagues and has worked as a manager and coach with the Phillies, Tigers, and Orioles. “I remember Cecil Fielder told me when I first came to the Tigers, ‘You used to come to first base and not say hi to anybody.’ I said, ‘What was I going to talk to you about?’”

  Samuel and Fielder became best friends. So, when they met on the field after Samuel had moved on to the Blue Jays, there was some conversation.

  “I used to tell him, ‘I’ll talk to you later, because I’m not sticking around, I’m going to steal second base,’” Samuel said. “But [the fraternization] is one of the things I hate.”

  Samuel talked about times when he was coaching third base and his team would have a runner on first base. He’d be ready to give the signs, but he’d look across the diamond and see his baserunner in deep conversation with the opposing first baseman.

  “To us, the first thing we did when we got to first base was pick up the coach and get the sign,” Samuel said. “Then you’d check the outfielders to see where they were playing. Now they’re at first base talking to the first baseman and then they’re at second base talking to somebody and you’re just trying to get their attention.”

  25. When There’s a Fight, You’d Better Be There

  PLAYERS TODAY MAY BE MORE LIKELY TO BE friends, but friends can still fight.

  Maybe one team thought there was a call for retaliation and the other team thought it went too far. Or somebody’s emotions simply got out of control, something was said and in the heat of an emotional game, someone took it the wrong way.

  Tensions rise and something sets off the fuse. Before you know it, both teams are on the field, going at it.

  Now what?

  The unwritten rules dealing with fights are actually pretty simple. For the most part, everybody agrees what should happen and what shouldn’t. They may argue about the value of fights or the need for them, but once they break out it’s pretty standard what the rules are.

  First, if your teammate is involved, you’d better be out there on the field. You don’t have to be throwing punches, but you’d better be there. Trying to help break it up or simply trying to make sure your side isn’t outnumbered is perfectly acceptable.

  Throwing sucker punches isn’t.

  Baseball fights may look like melees, but most of the guys you see all over the field are pushing, pulling, or just standing around trying not to get hit. As for the ones who want to throw punches, the key is that those need to be delivered face-to-face and one-on-one.

  And any player out there has to remember that in today’s game there are multiple camera angles of everything, and after a fight every one of those angles will be checked. They’ll be checked by the umpires and the MLB office, which is responsible for handing out fines and/or suspensions.

  They’ll also be checked by players on both teams, who will be looking to see who should be the subject of frontier justice. Sucker punchers aren’t acceptable, and they also aren’t soon forgotten.

  Think about what happened in August 2017 in Detroit, when the Tigers and Yankees got into it. The fight began at home plate between Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera and New York’s Austin Romine, but while they were rolling around on the ground, the Yankees’ Gary Sanchez ran up and sucker-punched Cabrera.

  Sanchez later said his “instincts” just took over, but nobody accepted that as an excuse.

  “He can do whatever he wants,” Cabrera said. “But if he wants to punch me, let it be face-to-face.”

  Later in the same brawl, Sanchez also sucker-punched the Tigers’ Nicholas Castellanos. MLB gave Sanchez a four-game suspension, later reduced to three.

  The problem with being seen as a sucker-puncher is that the reputation doesn’t go away easily. Word gets around the league quickly these days, whether through video replays on television or text messages between friends.

  Proper etiquette also says you fight with your fists. Fifty years later, people still talk about the time Giants Hall of Fame pitcher Juan Marichal hit Dodgers catcher John Roseboro over the head with his bat. In that key game between rivals in the 1965 pennant race, Marichal had knocked down the Dodgers’ Maury Wills, and Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax responded by throwing one over Willie Mays’ head. Marichal responded to that by throwing at Ron Fairly. In today’s game, there would have been warnings issued well before this point, but in 1965, things were different. It took all of that for umpire Shag Crawford to warn both teams. Anyway, rather than have Koufax retaliate and risk ejection, the Dodgers’ response came from Roseboro, when Marichal was batting. On a throw, back to the mound, Roseboro buzzed him, throwing it right past Marichal’s head.

  That started the brawl, which was fine except Marichal stunned everyone by clubbing Roseboro with his bat. Then and now, that’s not cool.

  “I was afraid he was going to hit me with his mask, so I hit him with my bat,” Marichal said the next day.

&nbs
p; Roseboro needed 14 stitches. Marichal was ejected, suspended for eight game days, and fined a then-record $1,750 (about $14,000 in today’s money). Roseboro also sued Marichal and settled for $7,500.

  Fortunately, no player since has used his bat as a weapon. Helmets are another story. When Bryce Harper went after Hunter Strickland at AT&T Park in May 2017, Harper took off his helmet and threw it in Strickland’s direction.

  26. If You Show Someone Up, There’s Going to Be Trouble

  ONE OF THE BIGGEST STORIES OF THE 2017 season in ­Boston began with a single word.

  Hall of Fame pitcher Dennis Eckersley was working the NESN television broadcast on June 29, the same night Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez made a rehab start for the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs. Rodriguez didn’t have a great night, giving up six runs (five earned) on nine hits in three innings.

  The Red Sox were playing the Twins that night at Fenway, and after Rodriguez finished his work, NESN put his pitching line on the screen.

  “Yuck,” Eckersley said.

  It was just one word, but David Price didn’t like it.

  It was a getaway day. The Red Sox were flying to Toronto that night after the game, to begin a series with the Blue Jays. Team broadcasters regularly travel on team planes, and Eckersley was part of the NESN crew on the Red Sox charter that night.

  As later reported in the Boston Globe, Price was standing toward the middle of the plane when Eckersley boarded. Since the broadcasters sit in the back of the plane on Red Sox flights, Eckersley had to pass by where Price was standing. When he got there, Price stepped in front of him and began shouting.

  “Here he is—the greatest pitcher who ever lived!” Price said, according to Dan Shaughnessy’s report in the Globe. “This game is easy for him!”

  When Eckersley tried to respond, Price continued.

  “Get the [expletive] out of here!” he said.

  Price’s actions were popular with some of his teammates, some of whom applauded.

  “I stand up for my teammates,” Price told reporters after his next start. “Whatever crap I catch for that, I’m fine with it.”

  There are many ways to show someone up. It can be as simple as taking someone on in front of others, as Price did. It can be flipping your bat in someone’s face, or standing at home plate admiring a home run. It can be stealing bases when you’re ahead by eight runs.

  Some third-base coaches will tell you that if they have a big lead in the late innings, they won’t send a runner home unless he’s going to score standing up. If he’s going to have to slide, they’ll hold him up, play station to station.

  Don Mattingly played the game the right way. But when Mattingly was managing the Marlins against the Dodgers in May 2017, he took offense when Dodgers shortstop Corey ­Seager swung at a 3-0 pitch with his team ahead 5–0 in the seventh inning. When the teams later traded hit batters and the benches cleared, Mattingly said he didn’t approve.

  “[Marlins closer A.J. Ramos] gives up a homer and a guy gets hit. It looks bad,” Mattingly said. “But also they’re up 5–0 and swinging 3-0. If they want to actually count stuff. They can say however they want it. But when they swing 3-0, up 5–0 going into the eighth, you can put it however you want.”

  Not everyone will agree on what lead qualifies as big. Back in 1993, when Mattingly was still playing, his Yankees team held a 6–0 lead in the sixth inning one night at Tiger Stadium. When Pat Kelly stole second base, Tigers manager Sparky Anderson took offense. Television cameras showed Sparky yelling across the field at Buck Showalter, who was managing the Yankees at the time. Later, after the Tigers had come back to win the game 7–6, Showalter said he had just wanted to get a seventh run.

  Sparky never publicly criticized Showalter by name, but he didn’t buy that reasoning. In an interview later that season with the New York Times, Sparky equated running with a big lead to swinging 3-0 in the same situation. He didn’t approve of either one.

  “I was raised one way,” Sparky said. “You have never seen me run five or more runs ahead. Not once. And you ain’t going to do it to me. If you do, I’m going to pay you back. I promise you that. There is a thing in this game: honor. It will always stay with me and I’ll never give it up.

  “Four runs, you can hit a grand slam and tie me. But you’ll never see me hitting [with a 3-0 count] five runs or more ahead. You don’t cherry-pick on the other team. You don’t take ­cripples—3-0, he’s struggling; he’s got to lay the ball in there. Don’t do it to the man. He’s got a family, too.”

  In other words, don’t show anybody up. If you do, be ready to face the consequences.

  27. The A-Rod Rules (or Stay off My Mound)

  ALEX RODRIGUEZ HIT 696 HOME RUNS IN HIS career, but it was hardly a smooth ride. He was twice outed as a user of performance enhancing drugs, and in 2014 he became the first player to serve a full-year suspension for using PEDs.

  But even when he wasn’t breaking baseball’s drug rules, A-Rod had a way of finding himself in trouble over unwritten rule violations. One of the strangest came in 2010, when ­Rodriguez ended up in the middle of controversy because he ran over the mound as he was going across the infield.

  Who does that? Only Alex.

  And he claimed to have no idea what he did wrong.

  It was a mid-April day game in Oakland. The Yankees were playing the A’s, and with one out in the sixth inning of a game the A’s led 4–2, Rodriguez reached on a base hit. Robinson Cano was the next hitter, and he hit a foul ball down the left-field line. A-Rod had passed second base and made it almost all the way to third by the time the ball was ruled foul. On his way back to first, A-Rod not only went over the mound, he stepped on the rubber as he passed it.

  Dallas Braden, the A’s pitcher, was not impressed.

  “Get off my mound,” he yelled.

  Cano grounded into a 3-6-1 double play, and after Braden recorded the final out of the inning at first base, he turned to yell again at A-Rod as he went back to the dugout. When the game was over, Braden unloaded again, this time to reporters.

  “If my grandmother ran across the mound, she would have heard the same thing he heard—period,” Braden said. “That’s the way I handle the game and the way I handle myself on my workday. That’s just the way it is. I would never disrespect anybody like that.”

  There was more.

  “I don’t care if I’m Cy Young or the 25th man on a roster,” Braden said. “If I’ve got the ball in my hand and I’m out there on that mound, that’s not your mound. You want to run across the mound? Go run laps in the bullpen. That’s my mound.”

  And…

  “I don’t go over there and run laps at third base. I don’t go over there. I don’t spit over there. I stay away. You guys ever see anybody run across the mound like that? He ran across the pitcher’s mound, foot on my rubber. No. Not flyin’.”

  And one more.

  “The long and short of it is it’s pretty much baseball etiquette. He should probably take a note from his captain over there, because you don’t run across the pitcher’s mound in between an inning or during the game. I was just dumbfounded that he would let that slip his mind.”

  The best part of the story: part of A-Rod’s response was that Braden talked a lot for a guy with 17 career wins. Fair enough, but a couple of weeks later, Braden got his 18th career win by throwing a perfect game against the Rays.

  His grandmother, Peggy Lindsey, was in the stands for the perfect game. And she got quoted, too.

  “Stick it, A-Rod,” she said.

  He didn’t need to stick it. He just needed to stay off the mound.

  It’s pretty simple. There are places you go and places you don’t. The base coaches don’t really need to stand in the designated spots near first and third base, but if they inch so close that they might be looking to steal signs, someone is sure to complain.

 
The on-deck batter doesn’t need to stand right on the mat they put in the on-deck circle, but he’s not supposed to stray too far from it, either. Get too close to the plate, and the pitcher is going to take offense. Same goes for the first batter of the inning, while the pitcher is throwing his warm-up pitches.

  Some hitters like to get a better view of the pitcher’s delivery or how his pitches move, but if they get too close the next pitch might move right into their ribs. Players quickly learn where to stand and even where to walk—watch how a right-handed hitter approaching from the first-base dugout will circle around behind the plate rather than crossing in front of it to get to his batter’s box.

  Players are particular about their equipment, too. You’ll often see a guy using someone else’s bat or mitt, but only with permission. Some hitters are so particular about their bats that they don’t want anyone else touching them.

  Ichiro Suzuki has always carried his bats in his own special case, all the way back to when he played in Japan. The case, which can hold eight bats at a time, is shockproof and ­moisture-free.

  “He dresses like a rock star and he carries his bats around in a case like a rock musician with a guitar,” Yankees pitcher Boone Logan told David Waldstein of the New York Times in a 2012 story.

  28. The Jeter Rules (or Acting Can Win You More than an Oscar)

  IT WAS THE MIDDLE OF SEPTEMBER IN 2010, AND the ­Yankees and Rays were in a tight race for first place in the ­American League East. The Yankees were half a game ahead, so every game was huge. And in the seventh inning on September 15, Derek Jeter came to the plate against Rays reliever Chad Qualls with one out, the bases empty, and the Yankees trailing 2–1. The Yankees needed to get the tying run on base, and Jeter knew it. So when Qualls’ first pitch was inside and ticked off the knob of Jeter’s bat, he made like it hit him and started heading for first base. Longtime Yankees athletic trainer Gene Monahan even came out of the dugout to give Jeter “medical attention” on his left hand. The Rays knew Jeter didn’t really get hit, but Jeter was able to convince home-plate umpire Lance Barksdale he did.