Quote of the Day

by Charlie Wilmoth on Sep 14, 2008 10:38 PM EDT

"I didn't deliberately smack at him. I just kept running and tried to hit the glove. That's what you're supposed to do. I didn't try to hurt him. We talked about it, and he said he'd do the same thing ... if the game was close. And I said, ‘Well, it's not like we're up 12.' We were up five, and I think we all know that a five-run lead for us is not exactly insurmountable."

This was in the home half of the eighth inning with the Pirates leading 7-2. Three outs to go. Talk about confidence in the Pirates' pitching.

Anyway, Aaron Miles, the one whose glove Mientkiewicz hit to break up the double play, said his problem with what Mientkiewicz did was based primarily on the timing in the game, not on the fact that you're not supposed to do it.

I was actually just thinking about this issue because I was at a game in Anaheim last week in which there was a bench clearing brawl that occurred after Torii Hunter stole second and third late in the game with the Angels up 6-1. Ivan Rodriguez tagged him out at home, words were exchanged, and then the brawl began. It seemed obvious to me that Rodriguez was upset because of the timing of Hunter's stolen bases.

I think that's a dumb thing to be upset about; in baseball, if the game's not over, there's still a chance your team could lose, so you're not doing your job as a player if you're not doing everything possible to make sure that doesn't happen. That's especially true if you're facing a team like the Yankees, with a potentially explosive offense, or if you're a team like the Pirates, with a pitching staff that tends to cause offenses to explode. If there's a point in the game past which you shouldn't try to win anymore, why finish the game at all? Mientkiewicz tried something and got away with it. More power to him. If Aaron Miles doesn't like it, he ought to blame the umpires.

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Comments

I don't understand that either.

I paid to see maximum effort from both teams, every inning, every out. If Miles doesn’t like it, if he’s conceding the game, he can walk off the field. Otherwise, he can bite me.

by bucdaddy on Sep 14, 2008 10:52 PM EDT reply actions

Bravo Mientkiewicz

That’s EXACTLY how you play the game!

by Deaner on Sep 14, 2008 11:39 PM EDT reply actions

Baseball players are strange beasts in this regard

When Davey Lopes was managing he went on and on about how classless some guy was because he stole a base or two against his team while they were trailing by a few runs. Someone took the time to check out Lopes’ career and found he’d done the exact same thing as a player a dozen times or so.

by WestCoastBuc on Sep 15, 2008 9:24 AM EDT reply actions

A poster on the PBC blog

made a neat point about LaRussa’s hypocrisy in this matter too, that he’s the guy changing pitchers every 30 seconds (like in the fourth inning yesterday, down 6-2, right before Nate took Flores to the riverwalk) and double- and triple-switching and bunting and stealing and acting like no lead is ever big enough — which is what he SHOULD do, no matter how much we hate him for it — and then to turn around and say, essentially, “You don’t do that in a 7-2 game,” well … he can bite me too. We had a 10-run inning against us a few days ago. It can happen again.

BTW, I am completely of the opposite mind with other sports, the ones run by the clock. I hate it when basketball teams down by 20 are hacking and fouling and calling 10 timeouts in the final two minutes, or when football teams down by four scores are still throwing.

I say: Lose with some dignity, dammit. Hold the ball and take a knee, admit you got your ass kicked, and get off the court/field. Of course, I have a professional interest in getting all games over as fast as possible, so I can get the results in the newspaper and go home. But still, few things are uglier, aesthetically, than taking a beautiful flowing game like basketball and hacking it up into three-second bits.

But almost nobody loses with dignity anymore. The last time I remember seeing such a thing was an NCAA basketball tournament game a few years ago, a first-round game where WVU was playing some little school from Texas or Louisiana, and the little school was down by like 14 with a couple minutes left, and you know how those two minutes are going to go with 99% of coaches, but this guy pulled his starters and let his second string have the thrill of playing in the big dance. WVU did the same, I think, and they just had a shoot-out the rest of the way as if it didn’t make any difference, which it didn’t. I respected that coach for that.

by bucdaddy on Sep 15, 2008 9:52 AM EDT up reply actions

TLR is the king of hypocritical stands

It’s just part of his job, to always stand up for his guys and criticize the other team and work the umps for every inch… but it sure makes him easy to dislike.

by Vlad on Sep 16, 2008 1:12 PM EDT up reply actions

Pirates new manager????

Brewers fire manager Ned Yost

by long4willie on Sep 15, 2008 3:47 PM EDT reply actions

his replacement

is former altoona curve skipper dale sveum.

the posters at brew crew ball seem to be beside themselves with joy. i didn’t realize he was so disliked.

by johnnycuff on Sep 15, 2008 4:14 PM EDT up reply actions

He’s hated.

Crazy that this happened now.

by Charlie Wilmoth on Sep 15, 2008 7:15 PM EDT up reply actions

On the honor code or whatever

This is a tricky issue, the issue of unwritten rules, and it seems to me it’s because each player thinks the code is universal, when in fact it’s the exact opposite: no two players have the same code, really. I think there are some situations where one shouldn’t go overboard in certain situations: see Pete Rose ending the career of Ray Fosse on a collision at the plate in the all-star game, or Utica College calling three timeouts and spiking the ball in the last drive of a game to get a touchdown that would put them down by only 30 (okay, you might not be familiar with that last one).

Most of the cases, I think, are gray areas. Ben Davis broke up Curt Schilling’s perfect game with a bunt single, and Bob Brenly was HOPPING mad after the game, as were a lot of d-backs fans. Schilling, however, was totally fine with it.

I think the Mientkiewicz example is a gray area too; I think Mientkiewicz has a good argument, but Miles as a right to be mad. One might also bring in the larger context that although the game may have still been winnable for STL, both teams’ seasons are pretty much lost, so why risk an injury at that juncture? Would Mientkiewicz have done this in game #162?

These sort of “unwritten rules” are a large part of the intrigue of the game for a lot of fans, especially the ones that played. It’s a way of relating to other players and knowledgable fans. It’s unreasonable to expect a player to play for the ultimate win 100% of the time, no matter the situation; these are humans with relationships with each other, who care about each other’s injuries and seasons. It’s also unreasonable to expect all players to abide by some sort of code, mostly because there’s no way we could figure out exactly what the code is.

Also, as far as the brawl in Anaheim goes, I think you may be right about the Yankees taking exception to the steals, but I don’t know if the evidence for that is there. Pudge never said a word to Torii, he just gave him a minor shove. I think this was a result of Pudge having the ball well before Torii had a chance at home, and Torii barged into him anyway. I think the brawl was a result of him taking exception to this, although I still don’t know what about that little shove caused Torii to march across the field and shove Pudge back; in similar situations I’ve seen that almost always results in words being exchanged. This is baseball, however, and there is so rarely an opportunity for fisticuffs, I just think the players and fans will take any opportunity they can get.

by Carnival Matleuse on Sep 16, 2008 3:00 PM EDT reply actions