Baseball is for beer, not whine

I'm going to refrain from being what one friend calls "too basebally" here, but I have to speak about some poor sportsmanship on the part of the Minnesota Twins, a baseball team the Orioles played over the past weekend.

After a thrilling win on Opening Day last Thursday, the Orioles did not play very well over the weekend. They got very few hits, and without hitting the ball where other people don't catch it, you don't win many ballgames. "Wee" Willie Keeler of the Orioles in the 1890s said the secret of winning was to "Hit 'em where they ain't."

So it was that the 2018 Orioles only had one hit as they batted in the ninth inning on Sunday. They were losing the game 7-0, so an 8-run comeback, although certainly not impossible, was highly unlikely. 

What were the Orioles supposed to do?  Come up to the plate, take a perfunctory swing and get the game over with, heading for a shower and a nice meal? That's a big no, because a) when a person plays a game, the same amount of pride that led them to become excellent athletes forbids them from dogging it, no matter the score.  A professional does his or her best every single time, every game.

And b) the people who paid to watch the game (in the stands or at home on cable tv) are entitled to see everyone try their hardest every time. The anecdote about oldtime player Enos "Country" Slaughter being told by his manager, "If you're too tired to hustle, I'll get you some help out there" comes to mind. After that, Slaughter played at full speed forevermore.

Back to Sunday's game. Chance Sisco, a rookie catcher, comes to bat and sees that the Twins are all bunched up toward the middle and right of the field, since that's where he tends to hit the ball. He bunted the ball toward where the third baseman is supposed to play, but since that man was 40 feet from there, Sisco got a hit.

Well! Instead of saying, "Jolly good! Well played, sir!" the Twins acted like three-year old twins. Especially since the Orioles got two more guys on base after Sisco but still did not score.  After the game, the Twins moaned in the clubhouse:


Second baseman Brian Dozier told Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, “Obviously, we’re not a fan of it. He’s a young kid. I could’ve said something at second base but they have tremendous veteran leadership over there. I’m sure they’ll address that. It’s all about learning. You learn up here.”

Jose Berrios, the pitcher, said, “I don’t care if he’s bunting. I just know it’s not good for baseball in that situation. That’s it.”

Outfielder Eddie Rosario chimed in with, “Nobody liked that. No, no, no. That’s not a good play.”

Now, it is true that there's an "unwritten rule" that forbids bunting to break up a no-hitter, not that I even agree with that rule. And frankly, if it's so easy to get hits by bunting, the Orioles should all learn to bunt. 

And this game wasn't a no-hitter to begin with. Sisco had gotten the only other hit Baltimore got earlier.

Nobody at third, you bunt toward third. What's the problem?

So I think the Twins are grousing over nothing. And this involves more than baseball. If you play by the rules in life, there are often chances to get ahead just by...playing by the rules!  It's like if you own a nice piece of land along a well-travelled road and you have a feeling that it might make a nice location for a McDonald's. You hang on to the property and wait until the time is right, and then when you see the Golden Arches being put up and the money flowing into your bank account, do you have to hear other people say that you just took advantage of the situation?

That's what situations are for!