Most of baseball’s 30 teams have only just now crossed the 30-game threshold of what figures to be a full season, meaning there are roughly 130 more to play, but already the core personality of this 2021 season is emerging.
It’s not real attractive.
The primary characteristics appear to be nastiness and boorishness, routinely displayed among secondary traits such as truculence, petulance, insipience and various other qualities associated with general punk-naciousness.
Not to be critical.
Sure, baseball’s got its typically inspirational story lines, the jaw-dropping abilities of Shohei Ohtani, the indomitable excellence of Mike Trout, the quotidian drama of a Pirates team working assiduously to avoid 100 losses, but the snapshot of this young season has one player screaming at another in postures and gesticulations more common to the NFL.
Every day can’t be Sunday, boys.
In the event you haven’t noticed — and fewer and fewer people are noticing the national pastime in the 21st century — the season wasn’t yet two days old when Cincinnati slugger Nick Castellanos, after a collision at home plate with St. Louis pitcher Jake Woodford, stood over the fallen Cardinal like Ali taunting Liston. Castellanos was suspended by the Major League Office of Tsk Tsk and Wrist-Slapping, which has been very busy.
The Reds weren’t exactly contrite over the whole thing, tweeting out a video in which reliever Amir Garrett said, “I want everybody to think that Cincinnati Reds is like the cockiest team ever. We’re some bat-flipping, showboating, son-of-a-guns. I want everybody to know that.”
I guess it’s better than knowing that, at the weekend, they’d have been in the National League Central basement if it weren’t for the Pirates.
Perhaps you also missed the ridiculous spasms of Phillies reliever Jose Alvarado, who fanned Mets outfielder Dominic Smith to end an inning, but rather than simply walk to the dugout, he screamed at Smith and began taunting him, whereupon both parties waited until teammates got between them to start another round of the baseball Hokey Pokey.
This isn’t to suggest there aren’t parts of the game that are truly dangerous right now, particularly with pitchers trying to control velocities up to and beyond 100. And failing. Philadelphia superstar Bryce Harper took a 97 mph pitch right in the cheekbone last week from Cardinals lefty Genesis Cabrera (Harper was OK, somehow), and Pirates catcher Jacob Stallings was hit on the lips by Cardinals righty Carlos Martinez. (Also OK, somehow).
I’ve been watching baseball pretty diligently since 1961, and I’ve never seen anyone hit on the lips.
The Dodgers seemed to be indicating that San Diego sensation Fernando Tatis Jr. might have a similar accident if he didn’t’ stop peeking at their catcher for the pitch signal, the one tactic that’s apparently too much among Tatis’ array of aggravating “showmanship.”
“When you talk about peeking, that’s just not the way you play baseball,” L.A. manager Dave Roberts said after a recent meeting. “If that is the case, which I don’t know, that’ll be noted.”
Asked if he meant the Dodgers might adjust the way their signs are presented, Roberts bristled: “No, that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Whether it’s the managers or the bat-flippers or the dugout celebration choreographers auditioning for a job on Broadway, all can be plausibly absolved for one obvious reason:
They’re bored.
They’ve really got nothing to do once the game starts. You can take your position, but don’t worry too much about moving — you’ve been placed analytically at precisely where the batter hits anything that he might actually hit, although batted balls in play is down to less than 17% according to MLB Statcast.
Strikeouts are up to more than 18 per game (there were fewer than 10 in 1979).
My favorite play in baseball used to be the bases-loaded triple. Now it’s when the ball girl accidentally fields a fair ball.
“I don’t think it’s cyclical at this point,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly told the Associated Press. “There’s so much swing and miss, it’s kind of off the charts. I think it’s something we have to address.”
Strikeouts will break a record for the 13th consecutive season in all likelihood. Walks are up, homers are down slightly, hitting is generally dreadful (big leaguers hit .232 in April, worse than the overall average for 1968, after which the mound was lowered by a third). There already have been four no-hitters this season.
“I have great concern that our sport has turned into a lack of offense, and the strikeout-homer-walk ‘three true outcomes’ is not our best entertainment product,” said Detroit manager A.J. Hinch, whose Tigers hit .199 for April but were up to a scalding .207 at the weekend. “[The game is] trending in the wrong direction. We can’t just snap our fingers and make a rule change or do one simple thing and all of a sudden we’re going to turn into a more balanced sport.”
Correct. It took baseball years to dig this hole, and it’ll take years to climb out of it. In the meantime, don’t blame the players for their bat flips or for taunting or for turning every walk-off win into a World Series celebration.
They’re just trying to entertain themselves.
