Post/Article by Eric Jesse
4/21/2019
Corn Fed Sports and Entertainment
America's biggest pastime has an interesting and very unique dynamic going on within the game that so many absoutely love. Major League Baseball (MLB) has never seen an "issue" like this before throughout their existence (since 1869). Bat flips are the topic at hand. For those that do not know this when a player that is batting hits a home run (sometimes just a base hit) and instead of setting his bat down softly he tosses it or flips the bat in a very exuberant way. This has rubbed a lot of the old-timers, "baseball purists", and advocates of baseballs famous "unwritten rules", the wrong way. We as baseball fans have heard about these famous "unwritten rules" for a long period of time. Too many these "rules" would not include any emotion, excitement, or even the word fun has been thrown out while describing these rules. The bat flips issue seemed to take center stage this past week when Chicago White Sox player, shortstop Tim Anderson went yard against on April 17th, 2019 against the Kansas City Royals.
Bat Flips
Here is the clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB-LZ9r8uUA
As
you can see Anderson "flipped" (more so tossed) his bat pretty good
and even added a little extra emotion with the screams going down the first
base line. However, the next time Anderson came to bat he was instantly hit by
the first pitch he saw. Royals pitcher, Brad Keller, was the pitcher in the
game while giving up the home run to Anderson and he clearly didn't like the
emotion or reaction he showed after taking Keller deep. After he was beaned the
benches cleared which resulted in a scuffle and in turn some suspensions handed
out, that however is a different topic. Back to the overall topic of the post
and the whole bat flipping "issue". I find this whole issue downright
ridiculous and unnecessary. The MLB has been promoting #LetTheKidsPlay and also
from a few years ago then Washington Nationals outfielder, Bryce Harper, was
promoting "make baseball fun again". This incident makes fans realize
that baseball is still struggling to #LetTheKidsPlay. Sports and competition as
a whole are supposed to be fun and the overall competition aspect makes players
emotions do many different things in the heat of battle. In other sports trash
talk, celebrations, and being yourself is almost a celebrated thing. In the
National Basketball Association (NBA) players are praised for being great trash
talkers and in the National Football League (NFL) they brought back the
touchdown celebrations which everybody loves now. In baseball, it has always
been a part of these "unwritten rules" that I discussed earlier. Let
the players have fun, be emotional, and talk trash just like all the other
sports. Forget some of these "unwritten rules" that baseball has. If
a player wants to chuck his bat after hitting a bomb, then let him. Pitchers
can't get so sensitive when something like this happens. This should also go
both ways then too. If a pitcher gets a big strikeout or double-play groundball
then they should be allowed to go wild on the mound by spiking their gloves,
fist pumping, doing cartwheels, or whatever they think is necessary. This would
be much better "payback" than plunking a batter with a ball. Like I
stated earlier if hitters are "bat flipping" than the hitters can
handle whatever the pitchers are doing on the mound to celebrate. None of this,
to me, is considered showing up your opponent. It is celebrating success, in a
sport which is ridiculously hard to sustain success in. Nobody should ever be
punished, beaned, or anything else when somebody is celebrating their
accomplishments. This whole "issue" adds a different dynamic to the
game that we have not seen before. There is only one thing to do, in my
opinion, to stop these absurd "bat flips" from happening. That thing
is for the pitchers to get the hitters out and send them back to the dugout.
Keep "bat flipping" and celebrating away, boys! I love it!
References
The Official Site of Major League Baseball. (n.d.). Retrieved April 21, 2019, from https://www.mlb.com/
USA, D. (2019, April 18). Play Of The Day | Tim Anderson Does Savage Bat Flip After Launching Home-Run. Retrieved April 21, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB-LZ9r8uUA
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- post by Eric
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