Unwritten

by Danny Knobler

  And sometimes they do it to give a guy a chance at a batting title.

  Going into the final day of the 1982 season, Willie Wilson of the Kansas City Royals (.332) held a slim lead over Robin Yount (.328) in the American League batting race. Wilson sat out the Royals’ final game of the season, saying, “My pride told me to play, but common sense told me not to.”

  But then Yount got three hits that day against the Baltimore Orioles. Suddenly he was hitting .331, just a point behind Wilson. In Kansas City, the Royals were getting nervous.

  If Yount got one more hit, his average would be .33176, just a touch better than Wilson’s .33162.

  So with two out in the ninth in a meaningless game the 94-loss A’s led 6–3, Oakland manager Billy Martin went to the mound and, according to reports, delayed the game for five minutes. His objective, according to what he told reporters that day? To waste time so the Royals could find out what Yount did in his final trip to the plate in Baltimore.

  “I was buying time for Wilson,” Martin said. “[Royals manager Dick] Howser called.”

  As it turned out, Yount was hit by a pitch in the ninth inning of a game the Brewers led 10–2 to clinch the American League East. He would finish at .33070. Martin could go back to the dugout and let Dave Beard get the final out.

  Wilson could go to the Royals clubhouse to celebrate his batting title.

  “I didn’t want to win by sneaking in by the back door… but I did sneak in the back door,” he told reporters after winning the closest batting race since 1949. “I’d like to have played… but I wanted to win the batting title more.”

  Yount went on to the playoffs and eventually to the World Series, where his Brewers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals. But first Brewers general manager Harry Dalton would express his indignation at what Martin and presumably Howser had done.

  “Things like batting titles are supposed to be won in the process of winning ballgames for the team, and not by individual manipulation,” Dalton told columnist Dick Young. “You’re either good enough to win something or you’re not.”

  Martin didn’t seem too concerned about any of that, or about any sense of propriety in the final game of that season. He started outfielder Dwayne Murphy at shortstop, the only time in 12 major-league seasons Murphy started a game in the infield. He also played pitcher Rick Langford for one inning in center field and four innings in left field.

  That’s in the record books. So is Willie Wilson’s batting title.

  But if Wilson had anything to apologize for, he was hardly alone. Colorado Rockies manager Walt Weiss held Justin ­Morneau out of the lineup for the final two games of the 2014 season, helping Morneau hold off Josh Harrison and Andrew McCutchen for the National League batting crown.

  “Anybody who has a problem with it, then their beef can be with me,” Weiss told reporters. “I’m going to try and make sure the guy wins the batting title. People can talk about backing into it and stuff, but that doesn’t bother me. It takes six months to win a batting title, not one day.”

  As it turned out, Morneau finished the season with exactly the same number of plate appearances as Harrison, who finished second. Does it really matter that only one of ­Morneau’s plate appearances came in the final two games of the season? Is that any different from a manager sitting a guy midway through the year against a pitcher who always gives him ­trouble?

  To some people it is different. Sitting a guy against a pitcher he doesn’t hit is part of every season. It means giving the team a better chance to win, and picking a spot during a long season to give a star a rest.

  It’s not building your lineup around an individual honor.

  The same weekend Morneau sat out in Los Angeles, ­Houston Astros interim manager Tom Lawless decided to leave Jose Altuve out of the lineup for the final game of the season in New York. Altuve had a three-point lead over Victor Martinez in the AL batting race.

  Altuve talked his way into the lineup and went on to get two hits against the Mets, holding onto his lead over Martinez and winning the first batting title in Astros history.

  “If you want to win something, you’ve got to win it on the field,” Altuve told reporters.

  Altuve did just that, as did Williams and as did Detroit Tigers Hall of Famer Harry Heilmann in 1925. Heilmann, who won four batting titles in his career, was battling Tris Speaker of the Indians for that season’s crown. The Tigers had a double­header on the final day of the season, and after the first game Heilmann was ahead of Speaker, who wasn’t playing that day.

  Told he could win the crown by sitting out, Heilmann said: “Not me. I’ll win it fairly, or not at all. I’ll be in there swinging.”

  He was in there hitting. Heilmann went 3-for-3 in that final game, finishing the season at .393 to win the title.

  52. There’s No Need to Say You’re Sorry

  THERE WAS NO BATTING TITLE ON THE LINE AT AT&T Park in San Francisco on the weekend before the All-Star break in 2018. But there sure was a lot of pride, especially for Oakland A’s outfielder Mark Canha.

  Canha grew up in San Jose, California, rooting for the San Francisco Giants. He was drafted by the Florida Marlins in 2010, taken (via trade) in the Rule 5 draft in 2014 by the A’s. In the middle game of that 2018 series against the Giants, Canha came to the plate as a pinch hitter, in the seventh inning of a game the A’s trailed 3–2.

  On a 3-2 pitch from Giants reliever Tony Watson, Canha blasted a two-run home run that put the A’s in front.

  And yeah, he flipped his bat.

  Nothing wrong with that. Huge moment, huge home run, and a celebration that fit.

  So it was a little surprising when Canha offered an apology in his postgame interview.

  “I’m sure a lot of San Franciscans are offended by that,” he said. “And I’m sorry.”

  Fortunately, Canha wasn’t done. He wasn’t done flipping, and he wasn’t done talking.

  “You know what, people getting offended by bat flips is so silly,” he said. “I’m not sorry. I’m not really sorry. It’s part of our game. Everybody does it. If someone is going to throw at me because of it, I’ve got thrown at in the past this season for bat flipping. I clearly didn’t learn my lesson. If you’re offended by that, I don’t care.”

  He shouldn’t care and no one should be offended. The idea that a simple bat flip like Canha’s “disrespected” Watson or the Giants is absurd. And to be fair, no Giants said or did anything to suggest they felt that way.

  Former Giant pitcher Mike Krukow, the analyst for Giants games on CSN Bay Area, did say on his weekly radio show that he would have “moved [Canha’s] feet” in a future at-bat. But even Krukow didn’t seem that put out by Canha’s celebration.

  “I think guys in this generation, they’ve accepted it’s part of it,” said Krukow, who pitched in the big leagues from 1976 to 1989. “As to the comment that he made when he was walking back from home plate to the dugout about this being ‘my house,’ we kind of laughed about it. Like wait a second, this guy’s a .230 hitter or something here in this ballpark. That ain’t exactly putting up a flag saying it’s my house. But he did hit the home run that gave his team the lead and eventually the win so he was feeling pretty froggy.”

  Krukow did lead the league in hit batters one year (with eight), so maybe he would have moved Canha’s feet. Maybe in that era, Canha wouldn’t have flipped the bat in the first place. But the idea that a hitter in 2018 should feel the need to apologize for flipping his bat after a huge game-turning home run in a rivalry game feels wrong.

  And yet, Canha wasn’t alone.

  A month later, in a Sunday night game at Wrigley Field, Chicago Cubs rookie David Bote came to the plate in the ninth inning with the bases loaded and the Cubs down 3–0 to the Washington Nationals. Bote crushed a Ryan Madson pitch high over the center-field fence for a walkoff grand slam.

  And yes, Bote c
elebrated by flipping his bat. Flipped it quite dramatically (a lot more dramatically than Canha did).

  Why not?

  Bote was just the 29th player in major-league history to erase a three-run lead with a walkoff grand slam. He was just the seventh to do it as a pinch hitter. And it was just his third major-league home run. And there were two out and two strikes.

  He needed no apology. But he offered one in a way, the day after the slam, in an appearance on Chicago’s 670 The Score radio.

  “I didn’t even realize I did it until I saw it on the replay,” Bote said. “I thought, ‘Oh man, I did bat flip it.’ Obviously, I meant no disrespect by any means. It was just the heat of the moment, I got it good and I was wishing it out.”

  Of course he meant no disrespect. Of course he was excited. It was, as he said that night, a “magical” moment.

  Not everyone would have reacted with a bat flip. Jason ­Heyward didn’t flip his bat when he hit a walkoff grand slam for the Cubs that same season. Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant makes a point of never flipping his bat.

  But Bote’s flip was as natural as Kirk Gibson’s famous double-­fist pump in the 1988 World Series, as natural as Carlton Fisk waving his home run ball to stay fair in 1975. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it.

  “Players should never apologize for bat flips,” MLB.com’s Alyson Footer wrote on Twitter after reading what Bote said. “They’re glorious. Grumpy old men need to zip it. More bat flips, please.”

  To be fair, I’m not sure there were any grumpy old men ­complaining about what Bote did. But maybe there were.

  The people who complain about bat flips mostly get upset after untimely flips. They roll their eyes when a player like Juan Soto flips after a walk, or when Odubel Herrera flips after doubles, singles, and sometimes even foul balls.

  Pittsburgh Pirates manager Clint Hurdle complained about Cubs infielder Javier Baez after a game early in the 2018 season. Baez flipped his bat on a pop-up to shortstop against Hurdle’s Pirates.

  “You watch their kid flip that bat last night?” Hurdle asked reporters. “Where’s the respect for the game? The guy hits four homers in two days, so that means you can take your bat and throw it 15, 20 feet in the air when you pop up like you should have hit your fifth home run? I would bet that men over there talked to him, because I do believe they have a group over there that speaks truth to power.”

  Baez took offense at Hurdle questioning the way he plays, but he agreed it wasn’t the best situation for a flip.

  “You know what I learned?” Baez said. “How ugly I looked on that fly ball. I tossed the bat really high, didn’t run to first base and one of my teammates came up to me and said it, in a good way. You learn from it.... I was mad about it. Not the fly ball, just the way I looked for the kids and everyone that follows me. That’s not a good look. I learned that from today.”

  Asked about it a couple months later, Hurdle said he wasn’t completely comfortable criticizing a player on another team.

  “It just came to a point where I was watching one of the most talented players in the game,” Hurdle said. “He just hit four home runs against us in two days. And he popped up and there was a bat flip and I was just like, ‘Wow.’ For me, I wasn’t just not going to say anything.”

  Hurdle said he would do the same with a player on his own team.

  “I believe in playing with emotion,” he said. “I don’t believe in playing emotionally. I believe we all need to celebrate successes. When it’s all about the event, okay. But when it’s all about you performing the event, that’s when we need to take a step back.

  “I just think there’s a respect for the game I’m trying to keep intact as long as I’m in uniform.”

  The celebrations can’t get in the way of playing the game, as Cubs catcher Willson Contreras learned in the 2016 World Series. In the ninth inning of Game 1, with the Cubs down 6–0, he hit a ball to right field that he assumed was a home run. He took a couple of slow steps, then dramatically flipped his bat.

  A bat flip down 6–0 in the ninth. A little much, but it is the World Series?

  But the timing wasn’t the problem. The problem was the ball didn’t get out of the ballpark. So this wasn’t about offending the opposition. It was about offending sensibilities.

  This time, Contreras was absolutely right to say he was sorry, which he did via Twitter.

  “I apologize to fans from both sides I didn’t mean to disrespect My team @Cubs and the game!! Promise It Won’t Happen Again,” Contreras wrote.

  Contreras didn’t mean he was done flipping. He absolutely was not done flipping. Two years later, NBCSports.com dubbed him “King of the bat flip.”

  He even flipped after a home run in spring training. No apology needed.

  And as for Canha and the A’s, they had no intention of ever apologizing for a well-timed flip. They were even celebrating their celebratory flips.

  Canha had T-shirts made that he gave to his teammates and sold to fans. The shirts had his name and his likeness and three big words:

  “Bat Flippin’ Season.”

  53. It’s the Players Who Police the Game

  WHETHER IT’S WITH RULES ABOUT COLLISIONS at second base or home plate or with heavy suspensions and fines for pitchers throwing at hitters or hitters charging the mound, those who run baseball have tried to take some decisions away from the guys who play the game.

  The guys who play the game don’t always like it.

  They’ll tell you that the players are perfectly capable of policing the game themselves, that they understand better than anyone what is acceptable and what isn’t.

  “I’m not big on making the game better by adding more regulations,” Colorado Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon said. “Let’s let the guys play the game.”

  He’s not alone, and old-time players like to tell stories about how they took care of issues on the field themselves, rather than asking an umpire or the league office for help.

  When Sergio Romo was a little too demonstrative on the mound early in his career and opponents responded by throwing at his teammates, Romo learned his lesson. Tone it down a little, so you don’t get any of your teammates hurt.

  In other cases, players who felt wronged found ways to take action themselves.

  Juan Samuel remembers one time he was sliding head-first into second base, and Jose Oquendo dropped his knee onto ­Samuel’s arm.

  “I got up and told him if you do that again, I’ll punch you right here,” Samuel said.

  But that’s not the only thing Samuel did.

  “The next time I got on base, I took a big old lead to see if he did it again, and I went feet-first,” he said.

  Drop your knee this time and you’ll find my spikes stuck in you. But Oquendo had heeded the warning. He didn’t drop his knee.

  Other baserunners from that era will tell you similar stories with other infielders. Infielders will tell stories of runners ­coming in to break up a double play with their head held high to disrupt a throw.

  Throw it right at them, the infielders were taught. They won’t come in that way again.

  “We used to stick up for ourselves,” Samuel said.

  That’s one of the things players mean when they say the game will police itself. Players let other players know when they’ve strayed, and the lessons are learned quickly and thoroughly.

  Sometimes that meant a batter charging the mound when he thought a pitcher was throwing at him. Players told other players that they didn’t want to see them just chirping at a pitcher.

  Either you can take action or not. Just don’t waste everyone’s time talking about it.

  “I’ve always been taught if you’re going to do something about it, do it,” veteran outfielder Adam Eaton said. “And if you’re not, why are you going to sit there and chirp like a dog over a fence. I’m not about
that. If I’m going to go, I’m going to go. And if I’m not, I’m not.”

  Eaton was talking a day after he believed strongly that the New York Mets had intentionally thrown at him twice, in retaliation for a hard slide breaking up a double play a few weeks earlier. One of the pitches from Zack Wheeler sailed up and in. Another hit Eaton in the rear end, and rather than respond to it in any way, Eaton quietly took his base.

  But Eaton wasn’t looking to Nationals manager Dave ­Martinez to decide whether baseball justice needs to be applied. That applies to charging the mound and also to whether a team needs to retaliate by hitting someone on the other team.

  “I don’t think it’s up to the manager,” Eaton said. “If it’s a manager’s decision, then the manager has too much control of the clubhouse. Guys police themselves. Pitchers police themselves, a lot of veteran pitchers and position players. And that’s not just about pitchers hitting people. Like with [19-year-old outfielder] Juan Soto, Skip’s not going to his room making sure he’s tucked in his bed at night.

  “The skipper manages people. He manages the lineup. Players have a job to do as well.”

  This is professional baseball, after all. Players are adults, and they expect the manager to treat them that way. A manager does set out the way he expects his team to play and act, but every good manager understands a team operates more effectively if the players handle issues before those issues ever come to him.

  54. Baseball Is Still a Game of Numbers

  THE NIGHT BLAKE SNELL BECAME BASEBALL’S first 20-game winner of 2018 (and the Tampa Bay Rays’ first 20-game winner in six years), Tyler Kepner of the New York Times saluted Snell on Twitter.

  “Blake Snell, 20-game winner,” he wrote. “No apologies—I still think a 20-win season is pretty cool.”

  So do I, but I also know that in this era it’s not always ­considered “cool” to believe that. The cool kids follow MLB Network’s Brian Kenny, whose mantra for several years has been Kill the Win.

  In some ways, his reasoning makes perfect sense. The scoring rule that assigns wins to individual pitchers has always had quirks that made it imperfect. Assigning wins to relievers never really fit, because in far too many cases the win ended up going to someone whose main contribution to the game was to surrender the lead handed him by the starter, only to become the pitcher of record when his team re-took the lead. Even assigning wins to starters became less palatable in an era when starting pitchers are in the game for fewer and fewer innings.