Written by Major League Baseball seems to have been in the news a lot lately, mostly for their crackdown on pitchers and illegal substances. Awhile back the White Sox Player Yermin Mercedes broke an “unwritten” rule of baseball by swinging at a 3-0 pitch that resulted in a home run, and the White Sox were already winning by 10 runs. That specific rule is “Do not swing on a 3-0 count when your team is comfortably ahead. There has been a lot of backlash about how ridiculous that rule is, and some of the other unwritten rules are. Tim Anderson argues he is bringing excitement to a boring game.
Another unwritten rule is “a pitcher should not indicate displeasure if one of his fielders commits an error.” I think most of us would agree with this rule, not just for baseball but for any sport. Last week Ross Stripling of the Toronto Blue Jays broke this rule when third baseman Joe Panik over threw to first allowing Giancarlo Stanton to get on base. Stripling was visibly angry. The most important part of this story is that Stripling recognized the error in his ways and apologized to Joe Panik, twice, and to the team. He said “[it is] the most disrespectful thing I’ve ever done, maybe ever […] I’m completely embarrassed about it.” He also said “You can’t do anything worse than that to a teammate. I feel terrible.
We are all human, we are going to make mistakes, and as humans we are prone to letting our emotions get the best of us, but the take away from Stripling is that we must own up to our mistakes. Sometimes our teammates are going to make errors that effect the outcome of the game; sometimes we are going to make bigger errors that effect the outcome of the game. Stripling also later tweeted a call to young ball players to be better than him. This is one of those life lessons we may not often think of when we talk about sports teaching us life lessons at a young age- I would consider it to fall under the bigger umbrella of learning to be on a team. This aspect of not disrespecting your teammate on field can easily be translated into not disrespecting your coworker or employee in front of a client, in front of other coworkers. There is value in supporting your teammates no matter what the circumstance, mistake or not. We all make them and when we do we are most often hardest on ourselves, we don’t need public ridicule. It all comes back to the Golden Rule: treat others as you want to be treated.
**In case you were wondering what the other unwritten rules of baseball were, here is what I found:
- Do not bunt to break up a no-hitter
- Do not swing on a 3–0 count when your team is comfortably ahead
- Do not spend your time admiring a home run you hit
- Do not steal bases if your team is ahead by a significant amount
- Do not swing at the first pitch of the at-bat if the pitcher has allowed back-to-back home runs
- Do not work the count if your team is winning or losing by a significant amount
- Do not rub the spot where you were hit by a pitch
- Do not walk in front of a catcher or umpire when walking to the batter’s box
- Do not stand on the dirt near home plate when the pitcher is warming up
- Do not assist a member of the opposing team
- Do not speak to a pitcher who is in the process of throwing a no-hitter
- A pitcher who is removed from the game in the middle of an inning must stay in the dugout until the end of the inning
- A pitcher should not indicate displeasure if one of his fielders commits an error
- Do not discuss a no-hitter that is currently in progress