baseball

Fan Ethics Guidance From A Red Sox Fan To Washington Nationals Fans (And Others): Booing Your Manager Is Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Matt WilliamsOn September 9, following his press conference in the aftermath of a horrible and devastating loss to the New York Mets, the Washington Nationals manager (the reigning Manager of the Year from 2014!), was vigorously booed by a group of fans (the rich ones) in the next-door Presidents Club dining room, who banged on the press conference room’s glass walls. The team was pronounced a shoo-in to the World Series, you see, before the season started, and that loss made it clear, if it wasn’t already, that the Nats probably weren’t even going to make the play-offs.

No doubt about it: Matt Williams, the team’s calm, amiable, incompetent manager, is part of the problem, but he was just as bad last year, just much luckier. (See: moral luck; consequentialism) He was hired with no managerial experience at all, just the experience of being a (pretty good) major league player for quite a while, and the truth is that managing a baseball team requires judgment, tactical expertise, courage, flexibility, facility with statistics and leadership, as well as experience. Williams isn’t bereft in all of these areas, but enough of them to make consistent success as a manager unlikely. Because the boo-attack occurred in front of the press corps and came from the season ticket types rather than the bleachers and beer crowd (“You’re a BUM!!!”), it immediately became a big story in Washington. Today, one of those angry fans wrote an explanation and alleged justification of his actions in the Washington Post.

He wrote in part:

“So, after staying till the bitter end of the latest heartbreaking loss, and after watching Williams wrap up another tedious Q&A filled with a series of cliched answers, a group of mid-30s fans who have been cheering this team from Day 1 had seen enough. A defiant Williams exited the podium, and we booed … we booed hard. It felt good. It felt like Williams needed to hear it — and it felt like the Nats brass needed to, as well…We’ll always support this team, but on a night like that night, sometimes enough is enough. When it takes 54 excruciating pitches to get three outs in a season-killing seventh-inning meltdown, and when the manager has pushed all the wrong buttons since last October, there’s not much else a fan can do…but boo.”

This fatuous non-wisdom comes from Rudy Gersten, an executive director at a public policy organization, and presumably he speaks for his similarly jeering friends, “an ethics and compliance lawyer, an IT project manager, [and ]a construction senior project manager.” Continue reading →

Now THAT’S An Unethical Baseball Fan.

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

WARNING: Click “Cancel” when the clip is over, or you will see a series of unrelated videos of dubious motive. I’m sorry; this is the only YouTube version of the incident.

Let’s list the ways this fan proves he’s a jerk:

  • He doesn’t clear away so the player (Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez) can make the catch. Technically it isn’t interference if he doesn’t because the ball is officially out of the field of play. But good fan sportsmanship dictates that a fan, even of the other team, should allow the catch to be made.
  • He not only doesn’t clear away, he competes for the catch. This is a fan actively interfering with the game, and treating a souvenir as more important than the game it would be a souvenir of—which means he’s an idiot, as well.
  • Then, after the catch, this guy tries to wrestle the ball out of Gonzalez’s glove…to steal the ball, in fact. As long as a ball isn’t abandoned by a player, lands in the stands, or is tossed to a fan, it belongs to the MLB.
  • In the alternative, as some have argued in his defense, he may not have noticed that he was wrestling with a player in the heat of the moment. I don’t believe that for a second, but let’s say it’s true. Any fan who sits that close to the field in a baseball game is obligated to know what is happening every second. Obligated. This is the Steve Bartman Rule, and you don’t want this to happen...
  • After the incident (I think Gonzalez told him to let go or he’d be very sorry), the guy took a bow. This is the final qualification of a fick.
  • He embarrassed Red Sox fans everywhere. There is nothing wrong with wearing your favorite team’s hat in another team’s park (contrary to the assertion of sportswriter Craig Calcattera and some of his Boston-hating readers), but like any other badge of allegiance, if you are in public and wearing a Red Sox cap, you represent the fan base, Red Sox Nation, as it is called in Boston (unfortunately), and that means that acting like a jerk reflects on more than just you. I just had to point out to a guy on another site (who wrote, “Typical Sux fan”) that the commenter is a bigot.
  • He also embarrassed his girlfriend.

That’s seven, and preserved for posterity.

Oh, by the way, he was kicked out of the stadium.

Good.

Ethics Dunces: Boston Red Sox Players

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

owens pole

Yesterday, while watching the Boston Red Sox game on NESN as I always do EVEN WHEN THE TEAM STINKS, like this year, because no summer soldier I, team broadcasters Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy pointed out that Sox rookie Henry Owens was watching the game while being taped to a pole, with his mouth taped shut as well.

This is old-fashioned baseball rookie hazing, as Remy explained (also opining that he thought it was stupid when he played and is stupid now). The theory is that this makes rookies part of the team, builds cohesion and spirit, and yada yada yada, all the same phony rationalizations that jerks have used to excuse hazing cruelty and sadism in fraternities, the military, cults and sports teams for eons. The Owens stunt was relatively mild (and mercifully short), but the practice of hazing is still institutionalized bullying, uncivilized, and, as Remy said, stupid.

Sports team players are home town heroes, and role models too. How many kids will be humiliated, tortured, injured or even killed because the Boston Red Sox thought it was funny to immobilize a 6’6″ rookie pitcher by taping him to a pole on live TV, thus teaching him that no matter how  good he may be at pitching (and Owens is going to be really good), he’s at the bottom of the pecking order until he “earns” decent treatment and respect. “In my experience, the guys who really liked hazing the rookies were the players who couldn’t play,” noted Jerry, a Sox regular in the Eighties.  They were sadistic bullies, in other words, making up for their own inadequacies by abusing others.

You can say that Owens consented, and that’s like arguing that Monica consented when the President of the United States wanted her to emulate a Bourbon Street hooker. Owens could refuse, and be regarded as a bad team mate, leading to a year or more of cut shoelaces, shredded uniforms, insulting messages on his locker and worse “jokes.” Or he could quit baseball and sell Slurpees rather than make a gazillion dollars. He had to submit, and had to smile about it.

So he did.

Even baseball players need to be better at ethics chess than this, and calculate the likely consequences of their conduct. Hazing is unethical, and glamorizing, modeling and trivializing it on TV is irresponsible.

And stupid.

Ethics Dunces: The National Baseball Congress

/ Jack Marshall / 62 Comments
Kaiser Carlile

Kaiser Carlile

Shortly before my father died, and a little more than a year before she did, my mother made a series of jaw-dropping statements in a conversation with me and Dad. “You mean to tell me that I could wake up one morning, feeling fine, and then just drop dead later that same day?”

My father actually did a Danny Thomas spit-take with his coke.

“What??” said my father, who saw this occur to a lot of people during the war. “Of course! We’re over 80! It can happen any second! It always can happen any second! People die, every day, for no reason, suddenly, stupidly all the time!”

“Well, I just refuse to accept that!” said my mother, who really did think that she had a right to live forever.

For some reason Mom came to mind when I read that the National Baseball Congress had decided that it will not use bat boys or bat girls for the remainder of its World Series games in Wichita following the death of 9-year-old Kaiser Carlile.  The bat boy for the Liberal (Kansas) Bee Jays died Sunday, a day after a freak accident in which the boy was struck in the head by the swing of a player warming up near the on-deck circle. Though he was wearing a helmet and was immediately treated by home plate umpire Mark Goldfeder, a paramedic, the injuries inflicted by the bat proved fatal.
Continue reading →

Baseball All-Star Game Ethics Musings: Taking Confirmation Bias Out Of Appeal Plays, and More

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Max-Scherzer

Some baseball ethics musings on the night of the All-Star Game:

1. Why is MLB going ahead with letting Pete Rose take a bow at the All-Star Game? This made sense–barely–when it was announced, since Pete is a hometown hero despite being a rest-of-the-world slime-ball. But after that announcement, it was revealed that Rose had bet on baseball as a player, thus rendering all of his statements to the contrary the lies they were. He should have been banned from the game just to make sure this latest revelation of his sliminess adds something to his punishment.

2. The best ethics controversy of the 2015 season’s first half? This: Washington National pitcher Max Scherzer was one strike away from a perfect game, leading  the Pirates in a 6-0 win, but hit Jose Tabata with a pitch to make it “only” an-hitter. A perfect game is 27 consecutive, outs, and the most difficult feat in baseball. Tabata had fouled off four pitches, before he  was hit on the elbow. Many believed that he that Tabata allowed the ball to hit him intentionally, just to wreck the masterpiece. This violates one of the “unwritten rules” of baseball, which are ethics rules. After all, any perfect game could be ruined the same way, and the pitcher is powerless to stop it. This is correctly deemed to be unfair to the pitcher, the fans, and the game.

Real rules also are involved. A batter hit by a pitch is supposed to be awarded first base only if he attempts to avoid a pitch or doesn’t have an opportunity to avoid it. If the ball is in the strike zone when it hits the batter, it should be called a strike, according to the Rule Book:  “If the ball is outside the strike zone when it touches the batter, it shall be called a ball if he makes no attempt to avoid being touched.” (Rule 6.08(b).)

Thus  home plate umpire Mike Muchlinski could have awarded Tabata a ball to make it a 3-2 count if he felt Tabata should have gotten out of the way.

Seven points:
Continue reading →

Independence Day Ethics Dunce: Sports Illustrated Illustrates How Too Many Americans Regard The Nation’s Veterans

/ Jack Marshall / 43 Comments

McCain tweet

Sports Illustrated tweeted out the above image and message that linked to a story by “Extra Mustard.” That masterpiece noted that

Senator John McCain attended Tuesday night’s Dodgers–Diamondbacks game and had a chance to grab a souvenir in the seventh inning.Dodgers’ shortstop Jimmy Rollins fouled a ball over the backstop that went bouncing into the lap of the senior senator from Arizona, but McCain couldn’t get his hands on the ball. But McCain deserves a break from critics: As you can see the ball was approaching from a very awkward angle. Still, this photo from Dodgers photographer Jon SooHoo does not make the former presidential candidate look particularly athletic.

Apparently neither the reporter nor any of his/her/its editors were aware that McCain has extremely limited use of his arms as a result of being tortured as a North Vietnam prisoner of war. Both arms were broken by his captors and left untreated for so long that he was permanently handicapped, as anyone who watched even a little bit of his 2008 campaign for President could hardly fail to notice. McCain is also 78 years old, not that respect for seniors who have spent their lives in public service could be expected to be a factor in SI’s commentary.

Would any of the magazine’s staff attending a game dare to openly mock a disabled serviceman who didn’t catch a foul ball?  Probably not, since the likelihood of some fans of the National Pastime taking offense and throwing a beer in their smug, ignorant faces would be a real risk. Ah, but from the safety of an office  in New York City and hiding behind a pseudonym—of course, Extra Mustard might be the jerk’s real name, I suppose—it’s easy to insult an elderly U.S. Senator, military veteran and war hero for the consequences of the wounds he sustained in the service of his nation.

Eventually SI was tipped off to its error, and it quietly removed the last sentence. No apology, of course. Such is the historical, cultural, political and ethical ignorance of a substantial portion of our national media.

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Pointer: Newsbusters

Ethics Dunce: Keith Hartley, Cubs Fan

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The one-handed foul ball catch made by Chicago Cubs fan Keith Hartley was all over the web and cable TV yesterday. If you missed it, here it is:

Nice catch. Of course, it interfered with the ball in play, keeping Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez from making the catch. In most circumstances, Hartley would have been thrown out of the game.

That’s the least that should have been done to him. He endangered his son—twice.

How quickly people forget that a fan in Boston is still recovering from a near fatal encounter with a shard from a broken bat that sailed into the stands during a game at Fenway Park, causing many baseball-hating pundits to call for netting to protect fans at field level. (This is how the Barn Door Fallacy works, after all.) I hate the idea of the netting, but there is no question that the seats near the action can be perilous. I once had access to season tickets by the visiting team on-deck circle at Baltimore’s old Memorial Stadium, and foul balls were whizzing by my head several times a game. I’m talking about line drives, not pop-ups, like the one Hartley caught.

To be blunt, his baby could have been killed. Continue reading →

Observations On The News That Pete Rose Bet On Baseball As A Player After All

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Rose Time cover

The story is here.

To summarize for those new to this story and its various issues:

Because the 1919 World Series fixing scandal nearly toppled the sport, any player, manager or coach who bets on baseball games will be automatically banned from the game for life and from the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame for perpetuity. Pete Rose, the all-time hits leader as a player and a certain Hall of Fame admittee under normal circumstances, was shown to have bet on baseball while a manager, after his playing career. For many years he lied, denying that this was true, then came clean in time to hawk his autobiography.

Rose has always had a lot of sympathy from fans and players, in part because he was such an exciting player, in part because he played with the innocent enthusiasm of a child and  he is a child, at least emotionally, and mostly because it was believed, since Rose insisted that it was true—yes, I know that sounds strange, given Rose’s record of serial dishonesty—that he never gambled on baseball while he was a player.

This season, public sentiment had been building to finally pronounce Rose forgiven. He had even progressed to the stage that some advertisers were using him in TV commercials. Baseball has a new Commissioner, and he had signaled that he would give Rose’s long-standing and ignored petition for reinstatement due consideration.

All of that is gone now, presumably forever.

Some last thoughts on Rose, as with any luck this is the last occasion I will have to write about him: Continue reading →

No, Lisa, Alex Rodriguez Has Not Suddenly Become a Role Model. Also, YECCCHHHH…

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments
New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez warms up before the Yankees' American League baseball game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts August 16, 2013. REUTERS/Brian Snyder (UNITED STATES - Tags: SPORT BASEBALL)

Some role model.

Yesterday’s Washington Post “Outlook” section was polluted by a column by blogger Lisa Swan, and were her message not so ethically offensive, I would be inclined to ignore it. Her masterpiece was titled, “The Redemption of A-Rod,” and it argued that because Yankee designated hitter Alex Rodriguez has played unexpectedly well for his team after a one-year suspension, because the team is doing well this season, because he has not, as in the past, been involved in some embarrassing or slimy scandal on field or off for the grand total of nearly three months, and most of all, because Yankee fans are cheering him, he has become, in her words, a “role model.” She writes, and I am suppressing a gag reflex as I type this:

“We want our role models to be perfect, especially for our children’s sake. But what can flawless, contour-free statues — the marble creatures on pedestals — really teach us about overcoming adversity? The reality is that most of us have more A-Rod in us than we do Jeter. No. 2 is cool but boring; No. 13 is the one who, after decades of trying, finally bested his demons — the flawed human who dug his own grave, then climbed out of it.”

The stunning thing is that A-Rod’s biggest and most ethically obtuse fan does a reasonably fair job of summarizing his illegal, dishonest, unsportsmanlike, narcissist and sociopathic behavior. She writes… Continue reading →

Would You Trust This Newspaper?

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Amphibious-Pitcher

I wouldn’t.

The newspaper is the East Oregonian of  Pendleton, Oregon. The subject of the headline was not, in fact, an amphibious pitcher, nor, as the photo above was labeled in its file, an amphibian pitcher, which really would have been a story. No, it referred to ambidextrous pitcher Pat Venditte, who was brought up from the minors by the Oakland Athletics last week, and who, while pitching against the Boston Red Sox (I saw the game on TV)  made baseball history by becoming the first big league pitcher to record an out as a left-handed pitcher and a right-handed pitcher in the same inning. In case you are wondering, the age-old question of what happens if a switch-hitter faces a switch-pitcher was answered quickly. Red Sox catcher Blake Swihart, came up to bat right-handed, then switched to batting left-handed because Venditte was then pitching right-handed. Venditte responded by switching his glove (it has two thumbs) from his left hand to his right to throw left-handed, and that’s how the situation stayed. Both batter and pitcher can switch once before the at bat is underway.

But I digress.

As for the headline, I won’t blame the reporter (he used the correct word in the story), but the headline writer, editor and anyone else on staff who saw the page before it was printed and distributed needs to find a line of work that doesn’t require English, writing, the conveyance of information, or common sense.

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Pointer: The Sporting News