Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 884: The Rangers-Blue Jays Brawl Draft

Episode Date: May 16, 2016

Ben and Sam banter about a bad fun fact, David Ortiz, and retirement tours, then draft noteworthy moments from Sunday’s Rangers-Blue Jays brawl.

So why'd you gonna have to fight dirty, don't fight dirty, don't hit me with the chair? The gloves are off. So why'd you gonna have to fight dirty, don't fight dirty, don't bite me in the face? The gloves are off. Now what you gonna do when I come for you with all that I've got? I've got a roll of cards, I'm aiming for your lines and I will never stop. Good morning and welcome to episode 884 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectus. Brought to you by the Play Index, Baseball Reference, and our supporters at Patreon.

Thank you, again, to all of you. I'm Sam Miller, along with Ben Lindberg of FiveThirtyEight. Hey, Ben. Hello. How are you doing? Doing all right. All right. Well, we're going to talk about a couple...

Well, we're going to talk about one thing, and I've got two banters from the weekend. Of course, we'll be talking about the fight, the brawl, but if you have any banter that is unrelated to those things, lay it on me. Yeah, one that is completely unrelated, and it's a terrible fun fact that I want to salute. And it was pointed out in the Facebook group by, I think, a listener named Nick. It was pointed out in the Facebook group by, I think, a listener named Nick. And it was tweeted by the official account for the Yankees PR department on May 12th, so last Thursday. And the tweet goes like this. In 2015, Nathan Ivaldi became the fourth pitcher to win every start versus AL Central in a season, parentheses, seven plus starts. So this is terrible for a few reasons.

Can you read it? Can you start it again? Because it's a lot to absorb. Yeah, it is. In 2015, Nathan Evaldi became the fourth pitcher to win every start versus AL Central in a season, parentheses, seven plus starts. Unbelievable. It might be the worst one i've ever seen it's terrible because a it's tweeted on may 12th about something that happened last year 15 yes so it's like we just uncovered this incredible fun fact glad to get

it in somewhere we can't just can't just let this thing lie around we've got to use it so that's one thing second thing fourth pitcher you know once once you're the fourth pitcher to do something just let this thing lie around. We've got to use it. So that's one thing. Second thing, fourth pitcher. Once you're the fourth pitcher to do something, it's automatically less impressive unless the other pitchers are Walter Johnson and Greg Maddox and Randy Johnson or something. To win every start versus AL Central in a season, seven plus starts. So it's just so many qualifications. It's AL al central which wasn't even a thing for most of baseball history it's pitcher wins which isn't all that important it's a minimum starts and it's seven for some reason there's just all kinds of things going on with

this tweet it's terrible um yeah wow so well done yankees pr department all right and what do you do you think anybody uh used it i don't know 186 000 followers yeah so uh it's hard to imagine that a writer would have found a place to fit that into his column but but maybe we should google and see if anyone actually put that into print. At the end of the tweet, it says more notes, and then there's a link in case you were so enticed by that one that you need more. Yeah. All right. Let's see.

Ben, I've been dreaming Rich Hill bad starts. I've been dreaming that Rich Hill is having a bad start. The other day, I dreamed three and two thirds, eight runs. Do you dream that you're watching it? Do you dream that you see it in the box score? It's not clear. Not clear. You just come by the knowledge.

Yeah, it's just happening. Rich Hill pitched, let's see, Friday. He went six innings, allowed three runs, which is the lowest bar. Clears the bar just at the lowest possible mark for a quality start. He struck out seven, walked four. And this wouldn't normally move the needle on anything Rich Hill related for me. I think I was at three and 39 last we talked. But this is now three starts in a row where he has not allowed many runs, but in those three starts, 18 innings, 16 strikeouts, 11 walks, a good ERA, but a 156 BABIP. His ground ball rate is declining. And if I was willing to give Rich Hill a huge, huge, huge benefit of the doubt

because of his peripherals over four starts, I have to admit that the three are starting to worry me a little bit. It's really a striking difference from what he did in the first half of the season. Although, in his favor, his strike rate and his swinging strike rate in those times, in those different time periods is not that different. So I, which is just to say that I would probably drop him a little bit, except for there's new information as well, which is that the A's are really bad. It seems almost impossible, right, that he won't get traded at the trade deadline, before the trade deadline, which would rule out a qualifying offer

and which would then make him more valuable on the free agent market. And so I think just for simplicity, I'm going to cancel those. I'm going to have those two things cancel each other out. Okay. So I'm staying at 3 and 39, but with this new understanding that probably there's no qualifying offer attached to him,

and that's a part of the math. I don't know how much to weigh the prophetic value of dreams. And I'm not sure if it's significant at all. I'm not sure if I should be listening to my subconscious or whether it's totally irrelevant, whether it just represents anxieties about something else manifesting themselves in Rich Hill box scores. For now, I'm going to treat it as a non-issue. I think that's smart. Maybe we should go to some sort of Oracle who can interpret your dreams for you.

You know, I live like a block away from Oracle, by the way, which is weird. It's just weird that you say that because Oracle has this really beautiful and imposing business park kind of that's all its own. It's on the shore in the bay, and they've got like a five-building complex that's really tall, black glass, and there's this huge, huge, huge sailboat in the lake in front of it that I think that maybe man-made lake in front

of it because, you know, the Oracle guy's really really big into sailing so he's got this sailboat that's like you know 95 feet tall and so you can see it uh from the hill when i when i do my walk up the hill so uh that means nothing to anybody but when you said i should go see the oracle i thought how did he know all right use the coupon code code BP to get a discounted price on your enterprise favor. All right. Second thing, and I feel maybe like we shouldn't even banter about this because I feel like maybe it would be a full topic on its own, but David Ortiz is something else. He has the best OPS plus of his career. He has the best OPS in baseball, or at least in the American League. I'm not sure if in baseball. I think in baseball. Maybe not. And as well as slugging percentage, he had a, you know, what was it, a walk-off or was it just a did-it-a-game-winning thing

this weekend? And has, I mean, he's basically completely undeteriorated from his peak at this point. In fact, now that I think about it i mean it's it's it's one thing to draw too much about 34 games uh but let's see 146 he's way better than his peak right now yeah season was what 2007 he's by any measure way better than that so yeah this season but even if you look at his last three years, I think he only had one, he had two three-year stretches where he was arguably better than he's been in the last three years.

And not even by much. I mean, he is really completely undiminished. So I wanted to ask you whether you think that the pre-season retirement announcement is a good thing or a bad thing. Because in one sense now, he's sort of locked into this, what arguably is a pretty stupid plan to quit playing baseball. And if he goes back

on it, there's awkwardness and Brett Favre jokes, and it costs him a little bit of credibility when if he ever, you know, did retire. On the other hand, it arguably adds a fund multiplier effect on all this. Although that's arguable too. I mean, you might consider this regrettable that it's sort of obnoxious to see him retiring at this peak, but that's his prerogative. Anyway, good or bad, if you're a baseball player retiring and you intend to have the best season of your career, or at least you're optimistic that you might, good or bad to announce in advance? There's no way that I would do it. I would never want to do it. I don't know whether the players want to do it. It's possible that it's a marketing thing. I think I remember there were reports that Derek Jeter didn't actually want to announce his retirement before the season, but it was just such a lucrative attraction for the Yankees that it was Derek Jeter's final season.

And it sort of worked out poorly for him in that he had a lousy year and he had to go everywhere and take a bow. And, you know, there was all this pressure maybe on Joe Girardi to keep playing him and keep batting him high in the lineup because he's Derek Jeter and it's his final season and all this stuff. So I think for the team it's a boon, and I'd probably push for the player to do it if I were in marketing, but I don't think I would do it if I were the player because A, I just wouldn't want to get some weird gift in a pregame ceremony before every game of the season. I just wouldn't want that. And wouldn't want the extra scrutiny on my performance. Wouldn't want to lock myself into it if I had a great year and decided I didn deciding not to retire after they indicated that they would retire. So if that happens, if David Ortiz does that, I don't think anyone would be too upset except for

the people who gave him the weird gifts before the game and then probably have to do it again. I'd be curious, actually, if he reneged on the retirement pledge, would he get another retirement tour or would it just be You already got your weird gifts I don't know But I would never want to do it It seems like there's no upside Except that you get a big outpouring Of love and affection

Which I guess is good But if you're David Ortiz You kind of get that at this stage in your career anyway So definitely against And really just against In principle Don't like it when anyone does it But I understand why it happens Anyway, so definitely against and really just against in principle. Don't like it when anyone does it, but I understand why it happens. Yeah, I you're right that there's a long history of people and retiring.

But there's a it seems to me there's a fairly short history of the retirement tour being the way that it is now. I might be wrong. It'd be interesting to, I guess somebody could probably write an interesting article about, you know, retirement tours in the 50s or whatever. I'm sure there's precedent. There's always precedent. Yeah.

It does seem like, in at least a lot of cases, it was more informal. Yeah. You can't, you can't unbuild that rocking chair. Yeah. Made out of broken bats.

I mean, I guess you you could you could break it so there's something yeah but there's something uh there there is something per is slightly permanent about it yeah uh in a way that i'm not sure it was before uh and build that surfboard yeah yeah yeah if i were you i would probably be putting that chipper jones retirement present link in every show page, every single day. The ones we don't talk about, just put it in there. Now you have to. Now that we referred to it, you have to.

I can do it now. I'm doing your work for you. Yeah, thanks. Except for that you're the one who literally will do the work. All right. Anything else? Nope. All right.

So there was a fight in baseball this weekend between the Blue Jays and the Rangers. And probably the best way to describe it is that it really is one of those situations. It's hard to know where to start. Exactly. It really is one of those situations where you make the joke about how you go, okay, well, to start with, you know, the universe was a ball of matter. But I guess we'll just start with, there was a hard play at second base. Jose Bautista got up to confront Rugned Odor

and Odor punched him pretty hard. And that's the brawl. So at the request of one of our favorite guests, we are going to reprise our draft from last year's Rangers Blue Jays extravaganza. We're going to draft our favorite things from this confrontation. All right. Is that okay with you? You have not been really told.

I have not prepped for this. No. You did your Zapruder-style analysis of this brawl, which we wrote about at BP, and I read that. If you want, we could pause for 10 minutes. You could watch it. Well, I watched it, so you've already pointed out all the best things about it. I don't think I have. No. Well, first of all, the best things is it's different

for the format. There are things that I would want to talk about that have nothing to do, that I don't mention. I did write about this for Baseball Perspectives, and you can read that. And I do break down some of the interesting things that are happening in the frame. But I think that there are other things we could talk about yeah probably all right okay do shall i draft first yeah sure all right so i think that the uh the the the thing that is the i think the the most fertile ground uh for a column uh and for further discussion and i'm drafting this not because i i like it or anything but because it's, I mean, it's really the most striking thing about this, other than the actual striking of Bautista's face, is Odor's throw. So if you haven't seen this, you have, but if you haven't seen this, Bautista comes in

hard, and Odor seems to throw from a extremely suspiciously low arm angle. His throw, by the way, it goes way wild. It doesn't look like he was even trying to throw to first. He's throwing from such a low arm angle right into Bautista's sliding face that it's really hard not to conclude that he most likely, probably, Really hard not to conclude that he most likely, probably, was trying to throw the ball into or just near enough to terrify Jose Bautista's beautiful face. Is that? I was thinking of it maybe almost as like a flopping analog. The throw was so wild, he had to make sure.

Like he was trying to make the slide look worse. And I mean, he didn't have to. It was obviously a... He didn't have to, although it's a good strategy. Because there are a couple of places in baseball where the rules do create an incentive. Like if you're throwing a run around at second and the batter is interfering with your throw, you actually have to hit him to make sure you get the call. You have to hit him with your arm or you have to bump into him.

I mean, that's why AJ Brzezinski did that weird flop thing some time ago, which everybody laughed at. But you have to do that. If you don't, the umpire is not going to give you that call most times. And the other one is when the guy is running down the first baseline and he's out of the white box. If you hit him in the back, you're going to get the call. If you alter your throw slightly and don't hit him in the back, there's a pretty good chance

you're not going to get it. And so with this, with the slide rule being what it is, relatively new, this is clearly an illegal slide, but it's not clear how much the illegality of slides is going to be enforced or how consistently or which umpire you've got in the booth that day. It makes a certain amount of sense to make a ridiculous throw, especially if you're not going to get the runner by natural means. So your flop theory is what I thought at first. I also didn't think that that was an honest attempt at a throw, but I thought that he was sort of awkwardly making it. I wasn't sure what he was doing but yeah okay so but uh i don't think that's what happened i do think he was aiming for or near batista's face

probably i don't know it's really hard to believe that he was trying to throw a baseball at a human being's face from a foot away and yet less hard to believe in that he tried to throw a fist at that human being's face momentarily. It's hard to believe, but it's also a player who has now on multiple occasions expressed violence toward his opponents. And at this point, I think he was. I think he was, which is crazy. There is like no precedent, so far as I can tell in my life, of a baseball player throwing a baseball directly at another person's face. And so one time, Andrew Parker, our catcher, who is the wisest man I think that I met during our Stomper Summer Inn, who's woefully underquoted in the book. But he asked me, I forget what the context was, but he asked me if when I'm driving, I'm nervous that the guy in the lane going the other way, who's directly the other way is going to just veer off

and and smash his car into my car and i said no of course not and he's like isn't that incredible that you don't fear that like you don't know this person at all that you know that there are psychopaths out there you know that there are people who are suicidal who are drunk who are distracted who are incompetent and they are driving this 1,500-pound missile loaded with flammable fuel into your car, you know, right past your car, missing you by feet. And if it was just once, then the odds are in your favor. But you're doing this thousands of times every day, and yet you're not constantly terrified that this car is going to decide to take you out and even though everyone who's listening to us during their commute right now and suddenly is terrified i hope so you should you don't know that guy that car up there you don't know him

you don't know him you don't know what's going on in his head. Anyway, baseball is essentially that. You take it for granted that nobody's going to throw a baseball into your face. And maybe you shouldn't take it for granted. And yet it's worked. It's worked. Runners and fielders and baseballs all go past each other at high speeds and everybody acts in good faith and nobody gets a baseball intentionally thrown right into their face and odor might have broken that simple single command and ruined the whole thing and if it a it makes you wonder now whether this is going to have to be a thing like are we are we going to start? I mean, once you start normalizing behavior, um, you get, you get people repeating it. Uh, you get copycats.

It becomes a, a thing that is done. And then you have to make a proactive choice not to do that thing. Even that crazy thing, you have to choose not to do it. Whereas before you would have never considered it. So maybe Odor has, has established, uh, maybe, I don't know, man, maybe he is, maybe he's ruined baseball. Uh, but also what is really interesting to me is that if you compare the crimes and again, we, I don't know, maybe, maybe this was totally unintentional that his arm slot dropped that low. The premise of this discussion is that it wasn't because otherwise we wouldn't have anything to talk about. But maybe it wasn't.

But assuming it was intentional that he was trying to hit Jose Bautista in the face, like insane punishment for that, right? If he had hit him in the face, if he had thrown a baseball hard into batista's sliding face that's like way over every line like you could make a case for you could make a case for out of the sport but certainly we're talking dozens of games would be a minimum acceptable uh suspension for that wouldn't you agree i would think so yeah and it sort of highlights just how important it is that the attempt works. Oh, Ben, you're – yeah, you're – In this whole debate? Hang on.

Okay. I'm getting there. All right. So in fact, he probably won't get suspended at all for that, or if he does, maybe it'll be like a two-game premium on him and yet he will get a long suspension for landing a really good punch whereas the punch was nothing abnormal the only thing striking about the punch again other than that it struck well i guess that is what is striking about it most punches are horrible most people try to punch somebody else in the face badly. And in this case, he did a great job of punching a guy's face, but his intent was no different than really Bautista's was.

Bautista was about to punch him. Now, that's a suspension for sure. You get suspended for punching players. But normally it's whatever games. For Odor, it's going to be more than whatever games, simply on account of it was a good punch. So because he missed Bautista's face with the baseball, but because he landed a punch,

the suspension is going to be for the punch and not for the throw. When really one act was pretty normal and within the culture of the sport. The other was possibly pure evil. And the suspension is not going to capture any of that. The suspension is going to completely miss what happened both on the field and in their hearts. And that's the nature of everything we do. This is our culture. It's crazy. We can be more certain about the intent of everything we do this is our culture it's crazy we can be more certain

about the intent of the punch than the throw i think because my only doubt about the throw is that it would have shown a lot of evil foresight to have done that in the moment right because you can't tell that his slide is going to be a hard slide or a dirty slide or whatever you want to call it until it happens. And so he would have had to adjust the trajectory of the throw in the middle of the transfer, which is, you know, a really quick and difficult action as it is. He'd have had to evaluate that Batista was doing something dirty and that it deserves some sort of reprisal and then done it all in that one instant. And so that makes me kind of question whether there was intent there, but it looks like there possibly was. I wouldn't

be surprised if there were, but I'd be a little more hesitant to hand out a suspension based on my reading of the intent there than I would with the punch where there's no ambiguity. I think you're right. I mean, this is why we do things the way we do them. It's weird is all. It's not wrong. It's weird. So anyway, that's, I guess, my first pick. It really was a aesthetically pleasing punch, though.

Oh, yeah. If you're into that sort of thing it was really a thing of yeah it was especially because he's got the he's got the he's got the he's got the helmet to punch around yeah that's it's not necessarily easy to not punch a helmet i mean right now he's got the ear flap there and he avoids the ear flap exactly yeah exactly really the first pick in this draft should be the cameraman who captured that i mean if you hadn't Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And got a clear angle and in slow motion it looks great. And I'm not even a person who, you know, I don't watch boxing or MMA. I don't really appreciate the spectacle of people punching each other in general. But maybe just because it's so rare to see a baseball punch landed and just, you know, so flush with the face.

This was just a perfect looking punch. This was like the platonic ideal of what a punch should look like. So I guess good job to the cameraman for capturing it. I don't know what my first pick should be. I kind of wanted to draft Jose Bautista's right hand because that's sort of the thing that goes undercover here is that his right hand appeared to be in the midst Of an equally forceful punch Oh yeah well not equally forceful But Batista is not the fighter that Odor is But he was going to punch for sure

He was going to do his best to hurt him Unless he was I mean Odor's Hand starts coming up first and so Maybe it was just a response A reflexive response to Odor's first move So I don't know whether, if we could somehow replay the whole thing and have Odor just do the shove, but not do the punch, I don't know whether

there would be a punch. Do you think there would be a punch if we could just edit the Odor punch out of it entirely? Would Jose Bautista throw that punch? Yeah. Okay. Well, in that case, then I think that's probably my first pick, just because Odor is, you know, vilified, and rightly so, I think, for this action. But it just sort of underscores how uninnocent everyone involved in this altercation was, and you could say how immature everyone involved in this whole brawl was. And if one player hadn't thrown the first punch, then another player would have thrown the first punch. And it's really hard to even

identify where this begins. As you said, introducing this topic, is it Matt Bush throwing a pitch in the previous inning that hit Bautista? Does it go back to last year's ALDS? It's hard to establish an origin story for this whole thing. But Bautista's cocked fist just sort of reminds us how no one really deserves any kind of acclaim for their action here. And there were no real victims. Yeah, I agree. You don't get the sense that Jose Bautista is very well liked in baseball. No. For, you know, except by people who like him.

He's that guy. So, yeah, it wouldn't, you know, it seems almost impossible to imagine that this doesn't go back to the playoffs of last year. No, of course it must. All right, so my second pick is going to be matt bush um yeah and i actually uh embarrassingly i didn't write i haven't seen matt bush's pitch i didn't even know that matt bush had had done this until this morning i was out all day yesterday and got home late yesterday and i wrote late and so i didn't happen to see the uh the all the preamble to it but matt bush

it's like the dude just got out of prison yeah he is he has committed arguably the worst crime that an active major league base arguably i don't want to say that i don't want to look i don't want to start rating crimes there There's some awfulness. But let's say at least out of the Lukey category, one of the worst crimes that an active player has ever had on his rap sheet. And he comes back. And this is, I mean, Matt Bush is a real challenge to, I think, a lot of us because, you know, he served his time. And the point of the correctional system is partly to remove dangerous people from the streets, partly to create incentives not to commit crimes, and partly to rehabilitate. And it is, I think,

an important part of what we all do, that we do give people second chances, that we do allow the rehabilitation arm of the justice system to work. And that we don't simply say, well, you committed a crime and now we have no further use for you, uh, live the next 60 years being a stain on society. Uh, and by marginalizing you, we will only create further incentives for you to be worse. We have to be merciful people, right? And I mean, I think one of the things that sets, you know, it's very easy.

I think I have no sympathy whatsoever for, for instance, Jose Reyes, because I think that the criminal justice system is woefully inept at dealing with domestic violence. And I don't think that the criminal justice system is woefully inept at dealing with domestic violence. And I don't think that Jose Reyes probably has been properly reprimanded for whatever awful things he's done to women. And so to me, there's a certain amount of logic of having, of taking this kind of ounce of justice where you can in society. But Matt Bush went to jail. He really

did go to prison, you know, like for a real, real time. And so he comes out and I'm torn between saying, you know, come on, why does this guy have to be a major league baseball player? Can't he, I mean, he can live a life without the adulation of millions and being, you know, paid a million times better than everybody else and getting to be a hero. Like he can go, he can do a real life. He doesn't have to be a ballplayer. And on the other hand, saying that it's not fair for me to say that, that forgiveness is an incredible trait for a culture to have and that we should allow that.

and that we should allow that. And so then he comes in and I am on as, you know, I'm trying as hard as I can to be on team Matt Bush, or at least I'm struggling with the position. And like the second game he throws a baseball at a guy, starts this big thing over a thing he wasn't even involved in. He was in prison when Jose Bautista flipped the bat that's not your fight bro you were in prison okay like just go one weekend one weekend could go one weekend without starting an incident if you've been out of baseball all these years

you're trying to convince people that you deserve a shot. So at this point, I just don't. I mean, I wouldn't give him. I'd probably just kick him out of the league. Like, to me, that just shows. Like, now it's all part of a continuum. And whatever. I just don't need him in my league at this point.

It was a weird time to throw an intentional hit-by-pitch, game situation-wise. But it looked very intentional. He was asked about it and he no commented, didn't even make the obligatory, wasn't intentional attempt to avoid the suspension. So it's weird. I don't know, you know, it's Matt Bush. So I guess it's completely in character for him to do something like that. I don't know whether it's an attempt to prove that you belong to the team or something or establish that you're part of this team by doing something in response to a game that you were not playing in.

Can I give a hypothesis? Sure. It is the one violent crime he can commit with no fear of prosecution. That's true, as we've discussed on this podcast. Bat mush, by the way. Great spoonerism for a pitcher. Yeah, that's true. Uh-huh.

Yeah. I don't know. Maybe it was an accident. If it is, I feel bad for him because it's a bummer to have a bad reputation. All right. All right. Well, I'm going to recognize a silly one. And there's always a lot of silly stuff that happens during baseball brawls.

Usually they are not actual brawls. Everyone just mills about aimlessly and tries to look threatening. But when there is an actual brawl and there is violence and there are punches thrown and there's intent to injure, then you look even sillier and more out of place if you are the one person who is sort of standing around or maybe making a token attempt to look like you're participating in this, but not really. And so I want to salute Jake Diekman, the Rangers pitcher who was on the mound during this play. And he sprints from the mound to the second base area.

And he's there in the frame when the cameraman cuts back to the second base area. And he charges with real intent toward Batista. And he seems to be about to do something. And then he just sort of remembers that he's a relief pitcher all of a sudden. And there's a moment where he just sort of concedes the fight to the position players on the field. And he's charging at Batista, and he's looking like he's going to do something. And then all of a sudden he stops, and he runs into three Rangers fielders, and he sort of slaps gloves with Ian Desmond,

and then he walks away. Right where he was a moment before, all the action is happening, and Odor and Batista are wrestling, and some other Rangers or Blue Jays come in from the dugout And Kevin Pillar is going crazy Right behind him and he is just Strolling in an unconcerned

Manner away from all of the All of the action and then continues To walk away so I appreciated That he ran in With such ferocity And really looked like he was Representing the Rangers here He was going to do something

And then he remembered, I'm a relief pitcher And my arm is valuable And it's not going to have much of an impact On this field So I will just concede the brawl To everyone else around me Because I am Jake Diekman I like that a violent brawl

And a pop-up in the infield call for basically the same reaction from a pitcher. Let a hitter do it instead. Unless you're Nolan Ryan and you want to participate directly, then, yeah, you pretty much get out of the way. Yeah, there are definitely pitchers who not only go in for this stuff, but who their teammates would like them to. If you're Samarja, for instance, you're expected, I think, to be involved in this dispute.

But for the most part, yeah, there's just a feeling. It's weird that pitchers are in so many ways marginalized as the punters of baseball. Yeah, but they're the central people on the field. And they're essentially in roughly as good a shape. They do all the things that hitters do in that they actually have to hit. They lift weights. They're strong. They're actually usually taller.

They're actually usually the taller people on the team, the bigger people on the team. actually usually the taller people on the team, the bigger people on the team. And yet, and yet, you know, a pop-up or a violent scrum is as the mouse is to the elephant. Yeah. I just love the, there's a glove slap he gives about 15 minutes in. He just sort of slaps, I think Desmond on the chest and just said, okay, you guys got this. I'm out of here. And I guess you could kind of give the same sort of recognition to at least some of the umpires involved here. Like, I guess it's second base umpire Bob Davidson is just wanting no part of this whatsoever. And it's a tough position to put an umpire in because, you know, they're supposed to be the arbiters and they're supposed to keep things civilized on the field. But when things get out of hand to this extent, there's

only so much they can do. And I think it's what Dale Scott runs over from first base and actively is trying to restrain people while Bob Davidson and maybe Lance Barrett, the third base umpire, are just walking away, just knowing that there's nothing they can do and they will just slap some suspensions on the guilty parties later all right uh my last pick is going to be uh russell martin and incidentally i don't know what russell martin did throughout the entire brawl i do see a uh a bad blog post with a bad blog headline that says, Blue Jays, Kevin Pillar and Russell Martin man up in brawl. Ryan Greco, your article sucks.

But that's not what I want to talk about, whatever he did that Ryan Greco is applauding. There's a point about a minute and a half into this brawl where everybody is in this circle except for Batista and Beltre who are off hugging in the in the in the foreground and otherwise it is it is one continuous mass of humanity uh there there's no real movement in there it's it's sort of everybody is kind of calming down. There's people in the middle of yelling. There's umpires. It's not peace by any means, but they're all distracted, okay? Everybody, the whole camp is down by the fire or whatever that, I should rewatch The Beach because I'm trying to make a reference to The Beach and I haven't read it since 1999 and so it's not going to work. Go read the beach and then write it for me in your head. Anyway,

the point is that in the middle of this pile, Ian Desmond is hatless and in the foreground of this shot, a hat is sitting on the grass about 15 feet from everybody. And nobody is looking at this hat. And Russell Martin is walking toward the pile. And he is on course to step on that hat. And I wanted him to step on that hat so bad. And he veers away. He avoids the hat.

And I like that it is within the unwritten rules of the sport to knock a man's teeth out, but you don't step on his hat. You just would never step on his hat. That would be awful. And so Russell Martin has essentially let us in because Russell Martin knows the rules. If you were to convene a Congress on unwritten rules with a delegate from every team, Russell Martin might be the guy that you would send. Russell Martin seems like he knows the game. He's well-respected, plays the game the right way, and also, you know, does get involved in enforcing but without being totally obnoxious about it. So Russell Martin knows. And in that moment, he let us in on an unwritten rule that we just didn't know existed, that probably didn't exist until Russell Martin.

And Russell Martin is probably the person who invented the rule without even knowing it. You avoid stepping on a guy's hat, even when you're fighting him, even when you're fighting against his team. You don't go out of your way to spike his hat there you go russell martin thank you all right i think my last pick will be brian holiday's bald spot yes i was gonna pick michael saunders bald bald spot there's so many bald spots There are lots of prominent bald spots in this brawl, and I don't want to make any moral judgments about bald spots. It happens. It happens to most men, and bald players are not immune to that. And I kind of appreciated the reminder that that gave us.

It's always sort of shocking when you see a balding baseball player, I feel like. I mean, there's no reason why it should be there's no reason why statistically they should be any more immune to male pattern baldness well the hat too i've always heard it might be urban legend but i think that wearing a hat it accelerates baldness well it definitely hides baldness and so that's part of it is that you don't see it that often because these guys always have hats on. They always have helmets on. And so you can just sort of assume that they have a full head of hair under there. And maybe there's sort of this endowment effect kind of thing going on where we think these are rich and famous and athletic and accomplished men.

They must be virile and perfect in every respect. And then one of them pulls off his hat and you'd see a big old bald spot there, just like an average guy. And so Brian Holiday is, you know, the most average guy involved in this whole scene. You sort of, you recognized him in your article as someone who rarely plays and yet played a big part in this. But I like that his bald spot is so prominent

in the camera angle because he pulls off his helmet. He's the catcher. And so it is right there on view for everyone to see. And it's just sort of this reminder that these are all very imperfect people. It's a very visual reminder that these are baseball players and they've all been incredibly coordinated and fit and athletic and they've done a lot to get to this point and yet they are still very flawed people in many ways maybe you don't need a bald spot to make that connection because there are people brawling on the field and that in itself is evidence that these are not the most mature people but i still appreciated the sight of brian holidays not so great head of hair right in the middle of this frame.

Is there any hypocrisy in our being so entertained by this, in our getting content out of this, when at the same time we would not condone this, we would not wish that this occurred, but we are clearly participating in the reaction and the furor? I want to say that my article speaks for itself. Okay. I would, as for your hypocrisy, we can talk about your hypocrisy all day. You got a whole article out of it. I didn't get an article out of it.

I don't know. Let's ask that on a day that emotions aren't so hot. Let's not politicize this. Okay. All right. So that is it for today Until the next Rangers-Blue Jays brawl Which won't be until at least 2017

Because these teams don't play each other Unless they meet again in the ALDS This is almost, it's all just sort of Maybe it's just a reaction to the craziness Of that 7th inning in the ALDS That was just so crazy That it seems like someone has to pay For how that happened,

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