Unwritten

by Danny Knobler

  The Philadelphia Phillies, in fact, went the entire 2018 season without having a player, coach, or manager ejected from a game. By the end of 2018, no Phillies player has been ejected from a regular-season game since since June 16, 2015, according to Matt Gelb of The Athletic.

  Ejections haven’t disappeared—there were still 185 of them during the 2018 season, according to the UEFL Portal, which tracks them—but it’s pretty safe to say no one will challenge Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox’s record. Cox, who managed 29 seasons in the big leagues, was thrown out of 158 games, plus three more in the postseason.

  Bobby Valentine didn’t come close, with 43 ejections in his 16 seasons as manager, but Valentine is among those who long for the days when you could go to a game and see a manager ranting and raving, perhaps throwing his cap or even a base, or mocking the umpire by covering the plate with dirt.

  “It became something of a fun event,” Valentine said in a 2018 interview on FanCred. “No one ever wound up in a fight. There was never anyone taken away in a police car. But it was really cool entertainment.”

  It’s hard to argue with that, but even harder to argue with the idea that it’s better to correct calls that were obviously wrong. Before replay was brought into the game, everyone could see within seconds that the umpire had blown a call. Everyone, that is, except for the umpires themselves, and they were the only ones who could change the call.

  The use of replay brought along unintended consequences. The combination of high-def TV and ultra-slow motion proved that baserunners sometimes come off the bag slightly while sliding into a base, so infielders are now coached to hold a tag on a runner as long as possible. Debate continues over how long managers should be able to hold up a game while deciding whether to challenge a call, and how long the replay umpires can take before making their decision.

  Ultimately, it would make the most sense for baseball to acknowledge that replay is useful when it eliminates the ­obvious wrong call. For the calls that are so close that they require ­multiple angles and stop-action, using replay slows the flow of the game and it would be best to let the original call stand.

  Umpires, for the most part, welcomed the use of replay. They don’t like getting calls wrong, and they especially didn’t like watching highlight shows after a game that showed their mistakes over and over.

  They didn’t mind the arguments, and many of them had a good relationship with Cox, even after throwing him out of games. One of Cox’s ex-players in Atlanta tells the story of one game where Cox was thrown out and spent the rest of the game in a room off the tunnel to the Braves clubhouse.

  The umpire who had thrown Cox out of the game had to use the restroom between innings and walked into that tunnel. The player watched, wondering if the argument was about to start up again.

  It didn’t. Cox saw the umpire, asked if the crew had dinner plans that night, then made them a reservation at his favorite restaurant.

  50. You Can Run (but You’d Better Know the Score)

  WHEN HE WAS COACHING FIRST BASE WITH THE Phillies, Juan Samuel remembers a young player getting on base and noting the opposing pitcher had a high leg kick and would thus be easy to run on. “I think I can steal second,” the player told him.

  Samuel was happy the young guy was paying attention to the pitcher. He also realized the kid wasn’t paying attention to the game at all. Either that, or he just didn’t understand. The problem: the Phillies held a big lead at the time. It wasn’t the time to go.

  “You might not want to run right now,” Sammy told the kid. “They might hit somebody.”

  Sammy knew plenty about stealing bases. His 72 steals in 1984 set a modern major-league record for the most by a rookie (although Vince Coleman topped it with 110 the following year). But Samuel also knew about when not to steal. He knew the unwritten rules of the game.

  “I had the green light all the time,” Samuel said. “If it was late in the game and I knew we needed baserunners, I’m not trying to steal a bag. I’m not taking a chance at getting thrown out. We need a big inning. If we’re up by five runs late in the game, I’m not running.”

  It goes back to the larger unwritten rule that says you don’t show anybody up. Some people will say if you guarantee you’re not going to come back, or that you’re not going to hit home runs when you have a big lead, I won’t run when I have one. That’s a reasonable point, but as Samuel told the kid at first base, if you run with a big lead, they might throw at someone.

  Samuel took a similar approach when he was coaching third base. If his team had a big lead, he’ll only send runners home if it’s a no-brainer they’ll be safe. There are actually two reasons for that. Beyond not showing anybody up, you don’t want to run any risk of injury on a play at the plate in a lopsided game (although the rules on blocking the plate and not running into the catcher lessen that risk now).

  But what’s a big lead? At what point is it still acceptable to steal bases or take the extra base, and at what point do you risk offending the opponent to the point somebody might get hit?

  “You can read body language of players,” veteran outfielder Adam Eaton said. “Sometimes it depends on where it is in a season, whether runs are being readily scored or not readily scored. There’s a lot that goes into it.”

  In this era where anyone can hit a home run, any team could come back. Should the Texas Rangers have stopped running and started going base-to-base on July 24, 2018? They led the ­Oakland A’s 10–2 with nine outs to go.

  They also lost the game, 13–12 in 10 innings.

  The traditional rule was five runs late in the game, as Samuel said. The idea was that with a five-run lead, even a grand slam won’t tie the game. And even though rates of scoring runs go up and down in different eras, many traditional baseball guys stuck to that number.

  Not everyone does stick to it, and not everyone agrees what constitutes late in the game. In a game between the ­Diamondbacks and Twins in August 2017, Twins outfielder Byron Buxton took off for second with the Twins holding a 12–4 lead in the fifth inning. An inning later, D-Backs pitcher Braden Shipley nailed Twins catcher Chris Gimenez in the ribs.

  It was only the fifth inning, but an eight-run lead is big at any point. On the other hand, Shipley had thrown over to first a few times, as Gimenez pointed out to reporters after the game.

  “If you’re going to [throw] over to first, I feel like you kind of have the right to steal,” Gimenez said. “If that was the seventh inning, or sixth, seventh, eighth inning, I don’t think he’s going right there. But it is the fifth and if you’re going to continue to pick over he’s got every right to steal.”

  Rajai Davis, who had played for seven different major-league teams and had 415 career steals through 2018, said he always allowed his manager to decide how big a lead is too big when it came to shutting down the running game.

  “It starts with your manager,” Davis said. “You have an idea what’s acceptable for your manager. I think everybody has their own opinion. Some say it’s one more run than a grand slam [at any point], others say if it’s the first three or four innings, it’s fair game.”

  Davis’ own feeling was based on the motivation. If you’re running simply to build up stats, maybe it’s not the right time to run. If you’re running because that extra base helps your team’s chances of winning, go right ahead and run.

  So what about Lou Brock, who held the all-time record for career steals until Rickey Henderson broke it in 1991?

  Brock is still tied with Eddie Collins for the career World Series record, with 14 steals in 1967–68. He tied Collins with a steal in the eighth inning of Game 4 in 1968… right after his three-run double had extended the Cardinal lead to 10–1.

  That’s right, Lou Brock stole third with a nine-run lead in the eighth inning. In the World Series.

  If video replay had been in effect then, Brock might have been called out on
the play. It was close enough at third that the Tigers argued umpire Tom Gorman’s call. Meanwhile, in the NBC broadcast booth, Tigers announcer George Kell told his audience that the Tigers had to be upset with the timing, too, since Brock was running with a big lead.

  Kell was right. The Tigers were upset. Because it was the World Series, they never threw at Brock in retaliation, and in that era before interleague play, Brock never faced the Tigers in a regular-season game in the years that followed.

  But in his book, Joy in Tigertown: A Determined Team, a Resilient City, and our Magical Run to the 1968 World Series, Tigers pitcher Mickey Lolich relayed a line second baseman Dick McAuliffe used at the time.

  “That isn’t the way the game should be played,” McAuliffe said, according to Lolich.

  Brock insisted he had done nothing wrong, even claiming after the game that the Tigers weren’t upset. The Cardinals outfielder suggested that tying Collins’ record was reason enough to run.

  “I would not have tried to steal if I didn’t have a record to shoot at,” Brock told reporters. “After all, this could have been my last chance. I might never have another chance at a World Series. I owed it to myself.”

  He was right about one thing. It was Brock’s last World Series. Brock had just one steal attempt in the final three games of the Series. Bill Freehan threw him out and he ended his World Series with 14 steals, still tied with Collins for the all-time record (through 2018, no active player had more than four).

  While the Tigers never threw at Brock, Lolich wrote that the steal gave them more motivation to come back in the World Series.

  And they did, getting their revenge on the field. Brock’s steal came in Game 4, which the Cardinals won to extend their World Series lead to three games to one. They didn’t win again, with the Tigers sweeping the final three games to win their first World Series title since 1945.

  Brock went 5-for-12 in the final three games to finish with a .516 batting average. But he scored only one run in those three games, and he didn’t steal another base. He also got thrown out at home plate in one of the biggest plays of Game 5, going in standing up as Freehan tagged him.

  Three days before he stole third with a nine-run lead, Brock stole second base in Game 2 with the Cardinals trailing 6–1 in the eighth inning. That one caused a bit of a stir, too, when a Detroit newspaper quoted Lolich calling Brock a “showboat.”

  Other newspapers said at the time that Lolich did question Brock’s timing, suggesting the steal was about calling attention to himself. Brock told reporters at the time that he simply was trying to rattle Lolich, who was dominating the Cardinals that day and would go on to win the Most Valuable Player Award when the Tigers won the World Series.

  Lolich didn’t get rattled by the steal, but he wasn’t happy with the report that used the word “showboat.”

  In his book, Lolich said he called the Cardinals clubhouse the next day to speak with Brock directly.

  “I told him not to believe the story,” Lolich wrote. “He said he didn’t.”

  Half a century later, there’s still some question about when a big lead should stop a player from running. All-Star catcher Yadier Molina said if a baserunner wants to try to go, he won’t complain.

  “I don’t get upset too often,” Molina said. “They can do whatever they want. The game has changed. You have to adjust.”

  Not everyone feels the same way. In a May 2014 game at ­Tropicana Field, Rays shortstop Yunel Escobar was on second base after a seventh-inning double that put his team ahead of the Red Sox 8–3. When he noticed the Boston infielders weren’t paying him much attention, Escobar took off for third. The official scorer didn’t even award him a stolen base, calling it defensive indifference. But Red Sox catcher David Ross, who wasn’t even in the game at the time, didn’t like it. He yelled at Escobar from the third-base dugout and Escobar yelled back. Before long, Jonny Gomes had run in from left field and shoved Escobar. It wasn’t the biggest brawl of all time, but it was enough to get Escobar, Gomes, and Rays utility man Sean Rodriguez (who had joined in) ejected from the game.

  So did Escobar do anything wrong, running with a five-run lead in the seventh?

  Red Sox manager John Farrell called it “somewhat of a gray area.” Rays manager Joe Maddon defended his player and criticized the Red Sox for their reaction, correctly pointing out Jacoby Ellsbury stole second with an 8–2 eighth-inning lead against the Rays in the playoffs the previous October.

  Four years later, it was the Rays who were upset about an opponent running with an 8–2 lead. It was June 6, 2018, and the Washington Nationals led the Rays by that score when Michael A. Taylor stole third base in the sixth inning with Sergio Romo on the mound.

  Fast-forward 20 days. Romo was closing out a 1–0 Rays win over the Nationals at Tropicana Field. Taylor was the final batter and after Romo finished the game by striking him out, the Rays pitcher wagged his finger, stared down Taylor, and shouted at him all the way back to the Nationals dugout. The benches briefly emptied.

  “No disrespect to that team,” Romo said after the game. “No disrespect to that coaching staff. No disrespect to anybody on that team other than the person I felt disrespected me and my team.”

  Taylor’s answer was simply that the game wasn’t over at 8–2 in the sixth.

  “Obviously, they think differently, but I’m not worried about that,” Taylor told reporters.

  A few weeks later, Romo explained that his understanding had always been that you don’t run with a five-run lead after the fifth inning. If you do, you’re only trying to pad your own statistics and being disrespectful.

  Besides, Romo said, it’s not like he threw at Taylor.

  “There was never any intent to cause any harm,” Romo said. “There was only an attempt to inform, to let him know. I don’t know him personally. I don’t have anything against him personally. But I didn’t like what he did, and the first chance I had, I let him know.

  “Did my point get made?”

  51. When You Sit to Wear a Crown

  TED WILLIAMS MADE HIS POINT IN A VERY different way on the final day of the 1941 season.

  Williams went into that final day batting .39955, which would go into the books as .400 since batting averages are always rounded to three places after the decimal point. He could have sat out the Boston Red Sox’s doubleheader that day in ­Philadelphia. He could have sat after his second-inning single in the first game, which raised his average to .40089. He could have sat out the second game, which he began with a .404 average after going 4-for-5 in the opener.

  Williams played both games. He came to the plate eight times. He got six hits. He finished the season at .406, a number that has only become more amazing by the year, since no one has hit .400 in a season since then.

  “If there’s ever a player who deserved to hit .400, it’s Ted,” Red Sox manager Joe Cronin told reporters that day. “He’s given up plenty of chances to bunt and protect his average in recent weeks. He wouldn’t think of getting out of the lineup to keep his average intact.”

  The Red Sox were 18 games out of first place with a week to go in the season. They were well ahead of the third-place Chicago White Sox.

  But when Cronin offered him the chance to sit, Williams declined. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about the stats. According to what he told others at the time and in later years, he cared very much. But he also cared about getting to .400 in what he felt was the right way.

  “If I’m going to hit .400,” he said, “I want more than my toenails on the line.”

  Compare that to what Jose Reyes did on the final day of the 2011 season. Reyes went into the day hitting .336, leaving him one point ahead of Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun in the National League batting race. The Mets were playing an afternoon game at home against the Cincinnati Reds. The Brewers were at home for a night game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

 
Reyes, whose season would be over before Braun took the field, decided a .337 average would be enough to get him the crown. If he went 1-for-1, he’d get to .337 and Braun would need to go 3-for-4 to beat him.

  So that’s what he was going to do.

  Coming to the plate in the bottom of the first, Reyes put down a bunt and raced to first base. And as soon as he was called safe and had that .337 average in his pocket, he turned toward to the Mets’ first-base dugout. Mets manager Terry Collins sent Justin Turner to run for him, and the sparse crowd that had cheered Reyes’ hit began to boo.

  “To be honest with you,” former Met Keith Hernandez said on the SNY television broadcast, “I am not going to agree with this move at all.”

  “I heard some comments in the stands,” Collins said. “I don’t blame them. People pay a good price to come to these games. You’ve got to understand that I ask these players to do a lot. We worked hard to get their respect this year, and they deserve ours.”

  Reyes said the fans “have to understand what’s going on. They have to feel happy about it if I win the batting title. I do it for the team and for the fans, too.”

  There was plenty going on. Reyes was headed for free agency and would leave the Mets that winter. He left with the batting title, as it turned out, because Braun went 0-for-4 that night to finish the season at .332. But he left with a touch less respect, because of the way he won it.

  Criticism of Reyes even came from other players.

  C.J. Wilson, then pitching for the Rangers, took to Twitter and wrote: “Seriously people—taking out a star player to preserve his batting average lead...weak! I hope ryan braun goes 5-5 and wins the title now.”

  The reality is that managers and players often manipulate what happens in the final days of a season because of statistics. They do it to make sure a player stays over .300 for the season, or to give a pitcher an extra chance at a 20th win.