baseball

Jim Palmer Endorses The King’s Pass

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Jim Palmer, Hall of Fame pitcher, sometimes serves as the color man on Orioles broadcasts. He’s pretty good at it too, especially when he is analyzing the pitching. During yesterday’s Red Sox-O’s game, which I had to watch on the Orioles network because the Red Sox feed was blacked out, Palmer was talking about Sox slugger Rafael Devers becoming the first batter in MLB history to b called because he wasn’t ready for the pitch under the new pitch clock rules. His gaffe undermined a burgeoning Sox comeback rally in the 8th inning.

“It kind of left an empty feeling, and I’m not even for the Red Sox, “Palmer said. “I mean, you’re in the stands, you paid all that money, and your best hitter is called out because he’s looking at the pitcher a second or two too late. I understand why we’re doing it, but boy, it was disappointing.”

Essentially what Palmer was arguing for, though while not having his most articulate moment, was Rationalization #11, the King’s Pass, also known as “The Star Syndrome.” It makes sense that Jim would favor the Star Syndrome, where a team’s best players get away with misconduct that get third-string catchers released, since he was undoubtedly the beneficiary of it during his long and successful career. But it’s unethical thinking like that that causes NBA refs to hold back on fouls on star players in close games (and why I don’t watch the NBA any more). A few months ago, I heard another baseball “expert” say that umpires shouldn’t call batters out on close checked swings to end a one-run game. That’s advocating a system when rules are enforced differently depending on when they are violated, at the discretion of the umpire. Such a system resembles Calvinball, and such a sport has no integrity. Palmer also seemed to be suggesting that Devers should get a break because he’s a star, but an ordinary hitter should not.

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Giving The Devil His Due: It’s Time For Baseball Say “Sorry” And “Thanks” To That Bastard, Charles O. Finley

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Charles Oscar Finley (February 22, 1918 – February 19, 1996), better known as Charlie O. Finley, was easily one of the worst owners of a major league baseball team in history, and that’s saying something, because it is a repellent batch. He probably falls just below #1, Charles Comiskey, the greedy and abusive owner of the 1919 Chicago “Black Sox” largely responsible for his players deciding to take bribes and throw the World Series. (See “Eight Men Out,” one of the ten best baseball movies).

Finley was an insurance mogul who purchased the Kansas City Athletics and eventually moved the team to Oakland, creating a territorial conflict with the San Francisco Giants that violated MLB rules, but he was allowed to do it because Finley threatened to cause havoc with a lawsuit that challenged the game’s immunity from antitrust laws.

That wasn’t the first time Finley was obnoxious and detructive, and it was far from the last. A loud, toxic narcissist, he tried to be the focus of attention on his teams, especially in Oakland, where a crop of talented young stars (Reggie Jackson, Ricky Henderson, Sal Bando, Bert Campaneris, Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers and more) made his team one of the great baseball dynasties. Finley underpaid them and treated all of his players like servants; his abuse was a catalyst for the power of the Players Union and the eventual institution of free agency. Dick Williams, his Hall of Fame manager, quit after a World Series, saying that he would rather leave baseball itself than work for a bastard like Finley.

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Open Forum, Spring Training Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Here’s your chance to get in rhetorical shape for the ethics rigors ahead in what promises to be a challenging summer.

Baseball’s Spring Training has just six days to go, but it also is the only part of the 2023 season prep with genuine full-team workouts. This is because so many players participated in the World Baseball Tournament on teams ranging from Israel and Australia to Cuba and South Korea. In the finals, the Japanese team won it all this week in a close 3-2 win over the United States. Mike Trout, the best player on Earth, struck out with the tying run on base.

Meanwhile, MLB issued a bunch of rule adjustments embarrassingly—ridiculously, really– late, because, as is often the case when new rules and laws are passed, the people passing them didn’t think through all of the ramifications and unintended consequences of the changes they were making.

One piece of good news for MLB is that the institution of a time limitation on how long pitchers could take to throw the ball to the plate and limits on batters stepping out of the box to fiddle with their batting gloves or whatever cut more than 20 minutes of dead time out of the average game. That’s a lot, and infuriating, because the wasted time could have and should have been curtailed long ago without having to use a pitch clock.

But enough of baseball—the Red Sox will be fine, incidentally, don’t believe what you hear—it’s time to

Play Ethics!

Now THAT’S An Unethical Umpire!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

There is an ethical argument for this ridiculous, game ending call, though not a very persuasive one. At the college level, the umpire was teaching a young player a lesson: don’t show up the umpire, or your team might be hurt.

I said it wasn’t very persuasive. Obviously punitive calls like this hurt the game in the yes of fans while undermining trust in umpires. (Ethics Alarms is breathlessly waiting for robo-called balls and strikes). The late Red Sox TV color man Jerry Remy, a former player, used to talk about how certain umpires would deliberately “squeeze” him in their strike calls because Remy was a frequent complainer, but none, presumably, was ever as obvious about it as the ump in the video. That was both ridiculous and stupid; he has, reportedly, been suspended.

Good.

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Pointer: Tim LeVier

From The Ethics Alarms Incompetence Files, Baseball Section, Unanticipated Consequences Tab

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Oh yeah, this is going to turn out well…

In the Boston Red Sox’s first Spring Training game, played with the new pitch-clock rules that will be followed this season, home plate umpire John Libka ruled that Atlanta Braves prospect Cal Conley was not in the batters box and “alert” to Sox pitcher Robert Kwiatkowski at the required eight-second mark. This mandated that an automatic strike be called. The automatic strike came at a 3-2 count with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the ninth, with the score tied 6-6.

That ended the inning, and, since there are no extra innings in spring exhibition games, the game. The final score was 6-6.Neither Conley, nor the fans watching, nor the Red Sox, nor either team’s broadcasters had a clue what had happened.

How exciting!

The new pitch timer rule requires pitchers to take no more than 15 seconds to begin their delivery with the bases empty and 20 seconds with runners on base. The batter must also be in the batter’s box and “alert” to the pitcher—meaning ready to swing— at the eight-second mark. Thus the pitcher clock is also a hitter clock.

Morgan Sword, MLB’s executive vice president of baseball operations, recently called the pitch clock “probably the biggest change that’s been made in baseball in most of our lifetimes.” If it decides many games by cutting off rallies with the bases loaded, I suspect fans might be calling it something else.

Making material changes to the rules of a successful enterprise after many decades is something that should not be undertaken precipitously or with a “well, let’s see how it works out!” attitude. Such changes, if made, must also be communicated clearly and widely to the public, which MLB has not done in this case.

I see strong analogies to, for example, the 2020 mail-in ballot rules, among other public policy innovations.

Baseball, after all, is Life.

The Rest Of The Story: Manny’s Opt-Out (Corrected)

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

After a post and a Comment of the Day on San Diego Padres third baseman Manny Machado’s announcement that he would be opting out of his 10 year, 300 million dollar contract after next season to seek more money that he won’t even notice, it has been reported that Machado has agreed to a contract upgrade that will now pay him $35 million a year for eleven years.

Whew! Now he’ll finally be able to afford those custom-built, nuclear powered, gold-plated android models of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame’s 342 members that he covets, and still have enough pin money to buy the Bolshoi Ballet.

So Manny’s announcement that he would opt out—he wasn’t ambiguous about it, he said that was a fact—was just a bargaining ploy. A lie. I said I detested this guy. I should have known.

When someone has tried such tactics on me, they learned that my response always is, “Fine, it’s settled then. Bye!” Eventually the word gets around, and nobody tries it any more. That’s what the Padres should have done. People keep using unethical tactics because their victims let them, and so they work.

Congratulations, Manny! You have your extra 5 million a year. May you choke on it.

Baseball Ethics Dunce: San Diego Padres Third Baseman Manny Machado

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

 

This isn’t so much about baseball ethics as values, and how our sports “heroes” corrupt ours.

I suppose I am obligated to confess that I detest Manny Machado. I haven’t watched him much since he moved to San Diego, but when he was with the Baltimore Orioles, he was one of the dirtiest players I’ve ever seen. He also wrecked the career of Dustin Pedroia, the star Red Sox second baseman whose values are the direct opposite of Machado’s, with an illegal slide.

Machado just announced that he plans on opting out of the remainder of his contract following the 2023 season, as the terms of his current deal allows. When Machado signed his current 10-year, $300 million agreement with San Diego ahead of the 2019 season, it was among the top three player contracts in MLB history. Now, however, 30 million dollars a year isn’t enough for Manny. You see, a few high-profile free agents have signed for more this off season, so this means, according to player agents’ Bizarro World logic, that Manny is being underpaid.

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Now THIS Is Incompetent Umpiring!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

University of Washington infielder Will Simpson hit a two-run 6th inning homer to tie a game against Santa Clara for his Huskies, 6-6. His exuberance rounding the bases and after touching home plate was, by professional standards, restrained. Yet the umpires ejected the player for “excessive celebration.”

Morons.

Boy, everyone is getting into censorship on the West Coast now!

Something Else To Blame On Wuhan Hysteria Baseball’s Corrupting “Ghost Runner” Becomes Permanent

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I am just about as loyal and devoted a fan of baseball as there is, and if recent developments in the game under the misguided and incompetent stewardship of Commissioner Ron Manfred risk alienating me, the “National Pastime” is in big trouble.

In the 2020 season, Major League Baseball responded to the Wuhan-interrupted Spring Training and shortened season by instituting the “ghost runner” rule that had been used in some minor leagues as an experiment. Each half inning after the 9th if a game was tied would begin with a runner on second base, that runner being the player who made the final out of the previous inning. The theory was that this would decrease the likelihood of marathon games, decrease player workloads and mitigate the chances of injuries to the supposedly under-prepared players. It was pushed, of course, by the Players Union, which wants its millionaires to have to do the minimal among of work possible for their lucre. Players have always hated extra-inning games; it’s like unpaid overtime. Never mind the fact that such games have frequently resulted in some of the most exciting and memorable contests in baseball’s history. I was in the stands for one of them: Carlton Fisk’s legendary home run off the foul pole in Fenway Park’s left field in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series.

Notes one baseball website,

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Baseball, Beanings and “Systemic Racism”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

In the latest issue of the SABR’s Baseball Research Journal, Jerry Nechal decides to finally investigate the conventional wisdom that pitchers deliberately threw at black batters after Jackie Robinson broke the color line in 1947 for an extended period. In the film “42,”  Pirates pitcher Fritz Ostermueller is shown verbally abusing and then deliberately throwing at Robinson.One of Ostermueller’s teammates confirmed the pitcher’s intentions years later in an interview, and there are other anecdotal accounts regarding other pitchers as well.

Like most research aimed at proving a particular thesis with social and political implications, Nachal’s effort was threatened by many forms of statistical pollution, prime among them being researcher bias. The task Nechal set out for himself was daunting; among other obstacles, standard baseball statistics don’t identify the races of players. Ultimately he relied on a previous study’s breakdown, and used a definition of “black” that excluded Hispanic and Native American players, which also meant that if those players were also thrown at more frequently than “whites,” it would distort the study results. Then there was the problem of accounting for deliberately close pitches that didn’t actually hit a batter. These  were unrecorded and unmeasurable until very recently. The study had to be based entirely on batters who were hit by pitches and got a free trip to first base if not the hospital. Continue reading →