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No-Hitter in Hand, Harden Pulled
Removing pitchers in the middle of no-hitters is getting to be downright commonplace these days. Eight days after Twins manager Ron Gardenhire raised eyebrows for removing pitcher Kevin Slowey after...
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Kinsler Came Back, and it Cost Him
Ian Kinsler just had to be with his teammates. The commissioner’s office disagrees. In the 10th inning of Friday’s Rangers-Yankees game, Kinsler was ejected by plate umpire Dale Scott for arguing balls...
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Bunt on King Felix? Preposterous!
It’s perpetually incredible that major league players can be unclear on the sport’s primary unwritten rules. Some claim complete ignorance, some apathy. Some are simply too green to have heard of them....
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Hamilton Breaks Arm, Hurts Feelings, Loses Face
Josh Hamilton clearly was not happy with the way things went Tuesday. With Hamilton on third, third base coach Dave Anderson noticed that nobody was covering the plate as Tigers catcher Victor Martinez...
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Elvis Has Left the Lineup: Shortstop Pulled After Mental Error
Elvis Andrus chases one of the balls that likely led to his mental lapse later in the game. Whenever they make headlines, baseball’s unwritten rules inevitably invoke something that happened regarding...
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Bringing New Meaning to ‘Beantown’: Padilla’s Drilling of Beltre Nothing New
Click for GIF This is what happens when one earns a reputation. By almost every account, Vicente Padilla’s beaning of Adrian Beltre yesterday was an accident. (Watch it here.) It came in the eighth...
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Head-Hunting Season in Texas Earns Immediate Consequences
Juuuuust a bit inside. The real question after Thursday’s head-hunting and Friday’s suspension in Texas is why? Not why Twins lefty Scott Diamond was ejected, then suspended for six games. That much...
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Yu Who? Backpack Season is Upon Us
With Yu Darvish’s near-perfect game Tuesday came the inevitable cries of jinx. It didn’t hurt that the TV broadcast included the comment, “Darvish looking for number six, and the second perfect game …”...
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Pierzynski Drilled, Indignant and Just Maybe Scheming for Future Benefit
It didn’t take long—one at-bat, as a pinch hitter in the ninth inning Wednesday—for the A.J. Pierzynski roadshow, Texas Rangers edition, to roar to life. After eight seasons with the White Sox,...
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Darvish Nearly Perfect From the Mound. The Guys Behind the Plate, Not So Much
Don’t change anything during the course of a no-hitter. By now, that much should be obvious. Players don’t change spots on the bench between innings. Managers don’t make unnecessary substitutions...
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On Successful Homecomings and Misread Grins: The Tale of the Trying Smile, by...
Ah, respect. She is a vexing mistress. Ian Kinsler, reluctantly departed from his career-long home in Arlington after an off-season trade with Detroit, returned for the first time yesterday as a member...
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The Air is Hot, Smart or Not, Deep in the Heart of Texas
So this is what the ruination of baseball’s unwritten rules looks like. People keep marginalizing them, shunting them to the corner, labeling those who play by their merits as kooks and haters of fun....
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Give Adrian Beltre His Due … Down to the Penny
Gamesmanship is terrific. In the late 1960s and early-’70s, Rico Carty hit exceedingly well against Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis—a .341 lifetime batting average with four homers in 41 at-bats. In...
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Knee, Meet Fingers. Fingers, Knee. Chat Amongst Yourselves
After having paid particular attention to baseball’s unwritten rules since I started researching The Baseball Codes in 2005, I’ve compiled what seems like a pretty comprehensive set. On Saturday,...
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Knee-gate Revisited
Last week we examined Adam Rosales’ knee plant atop second base, which was called out by Rays shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera as violating some sort of unwritten rule pertaining to middle infielders. Never...
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Internalizing a Horrible Outing Takes Different Shapes for Different People,...
Two games in, and we got beef. For the Mariners, it’s entirely justified. Reliever Tom Wilhelmsen—with Seattle for the first five seasons of his career, but as of last November a member of the...
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Does Anybody Even Know What Baseball’s Unwritten Rules Are, Anymore?
Vicious RT @CauldronICYMI Rougned Odor hits Jose Bautista with right cross to jaw after Bautista slid through 2nd https://t.co/HFLXEoFgEd — CJ Fogler (@cjzero) May 15, 2016 We’ll get to questions...
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Odor Hit With Eight-Game Suspension
The suspension has been levied: eight games and $5,000 to Rougned Odor for his part in Sunday’s fisticuffs. (He says he’ll appeal.) That part’s not surprising. Throwing a punch like is almost certain...
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Tension in Texas: Tempers Flare When They Didn’t Have To. Again.
Just last week we discussed the importance of understanding baseball’s unwritten rules, regardless of how one feels about them. Minnesota’s Miguel Sano had been thrown at, and missed, yet still made a...
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Can Sign Stealing That’s Not Really Sign Stealing Still Be Counted As Sign...
Standard practice when a team catches an opponent sign stealing is to inform said sign stealers that the jig is up and that it’s time to knock it off. The details therein are up for debate (verbal...
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