Baseball's culture clash: Vast majority of brawls involve differing ethnicities

[Mike Sixel]

I don't think ALL unwritten rules are stupid, it is how society largely functions. I largely think baseball's are stupid, though.

[TheLeviathan]

 

I don't think ALL unwritten rules are stupid, it is how society largely functions. I largely think baseball's are stupid, though.

 

No one is decrying behavioral norms, that's partly why these rules are so flippin' ridiculous.  They go WAY past that point under the guise of being behavioral norms.  If the Yankees want to require clean shaven players - fine.  If managers want to enforce in their clubhouse the way their team plays the game - fine. 

 

But to throw baseballs at people to meet an extremely vague and inconsistent notion of "appropriate play" is just asinine.  It empowers the jerks to enforce their own notions of appropriate play on others.  It leads butt-hurt jerks down 3-1 in the 7th to throw at guys for stealing.  It empowers color commentators to criticize hitters for wanting to raise their batting average.  (The dastardly fiends!)  The litany of examples is out there and often stranger than fiction. 

 

If you want gentlemanly play it should be encouraged by managers or owners in their own clubhouse.  Not by jerks with 90 mph fastballs. 

[spinowner]

I think it was Tony LaRussa who was asked about having a runner steal second with a large early lead. The quote was something to the effect of, "If the other team promises to stop trying to score runs then we will too." That's a totally different matter than exuberant celebration, but the traditional response in MLB would be similar.

I'm coming to the conclusion that baseball's unwritten rules should probably be reined in. Had this been done 15 years ago it would have greatly decreased the number of times Gardy got ejected. It used to drive the man nuts when the opposition would HBP one of our players without so much as a slap on the wrist and then the umps would issue a warning that meant retaliation = ejection for the player and the manager. The thought that the umps might have the authority to eject for a bat flip makes me shudder, but there must be some way to fairly codify the rules to deal with such an issue. The NFL gives a penalty for excessive celebration, so I would think MLB could come up with something.

[spinowner]

 

But claiming some cultural basis?  Balderdash.  It's not "us 'mericans against the world."  It's "my team vs your team."

Here's an example of how culture clash can unwittingly get someone in trouble. Back in the early '80's there was a Hmong immigrant (refugee, really) in Minneapolis who went to Lake Calhoun and caught several dozen fish for the purpose of feeding his family. He had no reason to think there was anything wrong with that and was unpleasantly surprised to be arrested for fishing without a license and taking more than the legal limit.

I think the cultural issue is very real, at least for young players. In the DR they have female cheerleaders (for lack of a better term) at baseball games. And look at what it's like in Japan. The fans' antics at games would be thought of as very odd by Americans. (At least I think it's very odd.) And you probably saw the video that was recently posted on another thread about the Japanese player going through a flamboyant warmup routine when he came to the plate. Players learning baseball in those environments learn the culture surrounding the game as well and it's a far cry from MLB culture. It's totally understandable that there will be a learning curve. Whether MLB culture should change is another issue, but a good organization should make sure its young foreign signees understand that the culture surrounding professional baseball in the US and Canada is much different from what they learned growing up. 

[ashbury]

The thought that the umps might have the authority to eject for a bat flip makes me shudder,

Could make it an automatic strike one, on the next batter.

 

I guess that means if you hit a walk-off homer, you do get to flip your bat penalty-free.

 

_{^{/ don't really don't to go that far either, just saying the penalty doesn't need to be as extreme as ejection.}}

 

_{^{/ and if the next batter is 2013 Aaron Hicks or 2015 Byron Buxton, the one-strike penalty might as well be an automatic out.}}

[drjim]

I really agree with Chief on this.

 

I might be misremembering but it seems to me this type of dustups happen at a less frequent rate than before - but each instance is exaggerated more and more. I imagine a lot of violations of norms are handled like the Twins-Indians situation. Some anger from the offended team, agreement from other parties of the offender and everyone moves on.

 

As a general rule, and it applies to all types of culture, I personally give more leeway to the people actually living in the culture to set their own norms than I do to people on the outside observing the culture trying to bend those norms into something they personally prefer.

[TheLeviathan]

These are not behavioral norms and the responses are certainly not analogous to behavioral norms in other settings.

 

I really don't understand how anyone can make that comparison straight-faced.

[Shaitan]

Ignoring the topic and hand but responding to general discussion:

 

Penalties in baseball? Please no. Just...please, no.

[Platoon]

I guess I come from the old school of baseball. But I don't think our unwritten rules were quite as intricate. Last nights Cubs game reminded me of an exact situation we experienced in amateur ball. The other teams star pitcher buzzed or hit our top two hitter several times in the season, and in our playoff loss to them. And pitchers hit. So our guy plunked him in the butt his last AB. He knew he was going to get hit, and our guy hit him low, and he jogged to first base, and not a word was said. Next year his control improved remarkedly. My point, there are unwritten rules in all sports. There is and was nothing wrong with them as they were for years. But To extend them to bat flips, and excitement on the bases is juvenile. If Molly and Kurt want to make fools of themselves on TV for a minor bat flip, go for it. To the teams credit they left it at that. As it should have been.

[drjim]

These are not behavioral norms and the responses are certainly not analogous to behavioral norms in other settings.

 

I really don't understand how anyone can make that comparison straight-faced.

I agree with the second part of your sentence. Baseball is a unique culture.

[drjim]

Bench clearing incident with a white pitcher hitting a white batter. Who would have thunk it...turns out it pretty much is team/game context specific after all.

[TheLeviathan]

 

I agree with the second part of your sentence. Baseball is a unique culture.

 

But that's the problem, people justify them because they think throwing at a guy for stealing up 3-1 is somehow akin to "don't use all the paper in the copier without replacing it".  It's utterly preposterous.

 

Bench clearing incident with a white pitcher hitting a white batter. Who would have thunk it...turns out it pretty much is team/game context specific after all.

 

 

I believe Homer and his Tiger Rock is the best response to this reasoning:

 

[spinowner]

 

Bench clearing incident with a white pitcher hitting a white batter. Who would have thunk it...turns out it pretty much is team/game context specific after all.

While this was true in this case it's incorrect to say that therefore it's true in every case. This argument fails in its logic.

[spinowner]

 

Ignoring the topic and hand but responding to general discussion:

 

Penalties in baseball? Please no. Just...please, no.

So do you think a pitcher should be allowed to purposely hit a batter at any time without penalty?

[spinowner]

Let's go back to one of the ugliest incidents in MLB history. Many years ago there was a game between the Giants and the Dodgers in which many high inside pitches were thrown. This was not by accident. When the Giants' pitcher was at the plate a similar pitch was thrown and he knew that the Dodger's catcher was complicit in this activity. He decided that these pitches needed to stop being thrown and so he took his bat to the Dodgers' catcher, who happened to be a friend of his.

I'm referring, of course, to the Juan Marichal/John Roseboro incident. This was MLB culture and unwritten rules left to run their natural course unchecked. Is this really what we want?

[jimmer]

This article isn't, in any way, saying that ALL the confrontations in baseball are due to cultural differences in the way the game is played.  But based on study, it says that some of them could very well be.

 

I do find it funny that people have it in their head that NONE of the confrontations could be because of cultural differences even after reading the article (assuming they even read it before dismissing it).  'What I think it right, and nothing said will change it.  I am not even open to the idea that it could be a cause even SOME TIMES.'

 

And then they want to accuse the WRITER of having preconceived notions that affect HIS thought process in the article :-)

[USAFChief]

 

Let's go back to one of the ugliest incidents in MLB history. Many years ago there was a game between the Giants and the Dodgers in which many high inside pitches were thrown. This was not by accident. When the Giants' pitcher was at the plate a similar pitch was thrown and he knew that the Dodger's catcher was complicit in this activity. He decided that these pitches needed to stop being thrown and so he took his bat to the Dodgers' catcher, who happened to be a friend of his.

I'm referring, of course, to the Juan Marichal/John Roseboro incident. This was MLB culture and unwritten rules left to run their natural course unchecked. Is this really what we want?

While this was true in this case it's incorrect to say that therefore it's true in every case. This argument fails in its logic.

[USAFChief]

 

So do you think a pitcher should be allowed to purposely hit a batter at any time without penalty?

Nobody thinks that. 

 

That's why an umpire can eject a pitcher for purposely hitting a batter.

 

[USAFChief]

 

This article isn't, in any way, saying that ALL the confrontations in baseball are due to cultural differences in the way the game is played.  But based on study, it says that some of them would very well be.

 

I do find it funny that people have it in their head that NONE of it is after reading the article.  'What I think it right, and nothing said will change it.  I am not even open to the idea that it could be a cause even SOME TIMES.'

 

And then they want to accuse the WRITER of having preconceived notions that affect HIS thought process in the article :-)

Which teams have no Latino players?  

 

Which teams have no North American players?

 

Which conflict hasn't featured players from both North America and other cultures?

 

[twinsnorth49]

 

Bench clearing incident with a white pitcher hitting a white batter. Who would have thunk it...turns out it pretty much is team/game context specific after all.

Yes, obviously, I mean how could anyone continue questioning it now?

[spinowner]

 

Let's go back to one of the ugliest incidents in MLB history. Many years ago there was a game between the Giants and the Dodgers in which many high inside pitches were thrown. This was not by accident. When the Giants' pitcher was at the plate a similar pitch was thrown and he knew that the Dodger's catcher was complicit in this activity. He decided that these pitches needed to stop being thrown and so he took his bat to the Dodgers' catcher, who happened to be a friend of his.

I'm referring, of course, to the Juan Marichal/John Roseboro incident. This was MLB culture and unwritten rules left to run their natural course unchecked. Is this really what we want?

 

 

While this was true in this case it's incorrect to say that therefore it's true in every case. This argument fails in its logic.

I don't see where I said or even implied that this applies to every case. On the contrary, I said that this is what can happen when MLB culture and unwritten rules are left to run their natural course unchecked. In almost every case there is intervention before situations progress to that level.

[spinowner]

 

Nobody thinks that. 

 

That's why an umpire can eject a pitcher for purposely hitting a batter.

As you can see, my comment was in response to a comment saying, "Penalties in baseball? Please no. Just...please, no." I think it's reasonable to conclude that somebody does think that.

[TheLeviathan]

 

Which teams have no Latino players?  

 

Which teams have no North American players?

 

Which conflict hasn't featured players from both North America and other cultures?

 

C'mon.  The point of the article is to suggest that sometimes guys like Gomez might be drawing the ire of white American players because of his culture's approach to playing baseball.

 

And the best defense that it appears to be to these people (Norris, clearly, and I doubt he's the only one) is that "This is 'Merica.  If you don't like it you can get out".

 

The people that matter aren't white joe schmo or dominican joe schmo in the mob, it's the principle actors in the situation.  This study indicates (and has an actual player verifying) that many of these incidents are cultural in nature.  Not a "please refill the copier" but a "That's not how we do things in 'Merica"

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

 

I do find it funny that people have it in their head that NONE of the confrontations could be because of cultural differences even after reading the article (assuming they even read it before dismissing it).  'What I think it right, and nothing said will change it.  I am not even open to the idea that it could be a cause even SOME TIMES.'

 

 

^^Good thing nobody said this.*

 

 

*This is usually Leviathan's line but I'll take it this time

[jimmer]

 

^^Good thing nobody said this.*

 

 

*This is usually Leviathan's line but I'll take it this time

Then you aren't reading the posts right because there are people completely dismissing the idea that cultural differences are a contributing factor.

[Shaitan]

 

As you can see, my comment was in response to a comment saying, "Penalties in baseball? Please no. Just...please, no." I think it's reasonable to conclude that somebody does think that.

Of course not. That doesn't mean I think an NFL style penalty system like "assigning a first strike" should be applied.

 

Penalties such as ejections, suspensions, etc, sure. Tokens denoting you did something wrong: no. 

 

That said, there's already a penalty for what you said. The batter takes first base. So I guess I am wrong.

[spinowner]

 

That said, there's already a penalty for what you said. The batter takes first base. So I guess I am wrong.

The batter takes first base whether the HBP is intentional or not. So, no, there is no penalty for an intentional HBP.

[ShouldaCouldaWoulda]

Okay, what is the MLB ratio of Caucasion vs. Latino at-bats, ratio of Caucasian vs. Latino HBP's, and then compare that to the ratio of Caucasian vs Latino confrontations. Context is needed. Guessing these are most likely #1-6 hitters, so what is that ratio too. Guessing we won't get that info, but I am guessing these would make the brawls less of surprise.

[spinowner]

 

Okay, what is the MLB ratio of Caucasion vs. Latino at-bats, ratio of Caucasian vs. Latino HBP's, and then compare that to the ratio of Caucasian vs Latino confrontations. Context is needed. Guessing these are most likely #1-6 hitters, so what is that ratio too. Guessing we won't get that info, but I am guessing these would make the brawls less of surprise.

What would be more revealing would be the ratio of US-born exuberant displays to Latino exuberant displays. BTW, it's not race that's the issue. It's country of origin. Latinos can be of African, Caucasian and native American ancestry. Kurt Suzuki was one of the American Twins objecting to the bat flip in Cleveland and his ethnicity is Japanese.