Unwritten rules rule America’s pastime

By Ray Brewer (contact)

Sunday, April 23, 2017 | 2 a.m.

When cheering on teammates, baseball players pull their hats sideways, backward, inside-out or with bills pointed up like dorsal fins. “Rally hats” are a tradition in the youth sport all the way through college, but it’s generally not done in the businesslike majors.

Some pros have argued for loosening the unwritten rules to allow more joy, including Las Vegas product Bryce Harper, an All-Star outfielder for the Washington Nationals. While he has called baseball “a tired sport, because you can’t express yourself,” Harper has said he’s not out to scuttle all of its informal framework. In fact, he says he respects the rules, even if some are outdated.

Why are the rules set up this way? They evolved to keep peace between teams and are based on longstanding rituals, customs and manners. Since baseball is a noncontact sport, the rules give players an outlet to vent their frustration. And they're enforced largely by the threat of getting hit with a pitch. But teammates also police each other. A pitcher who doesn’t retaliate could be shunned by his fellow players, for instance. And pitchers are expected not to show displeasure if one of their teammates makes an error. It’s an embarrassment to the fielder, and as such is unprofessional.

Here are a few other pieces of the code.

Respect the pitcher

• Silence: When a pitcher is in the final innings of throwing a perfect game or no-hitter, don’t talk to him. Often, the pitcher stays on one side of the dugout and his teammates stay on the other. The rationale behind the rule is believed to be that the pitcher needs to concentrate especially hard to figure out how to get the final outs. But it doesn’t always work that way. In a 2011 game, Angels pitcher Ervin Santana was sitting next to the Gatorade cooler throughout the game, and his teammates couldn’t help but say something to him as they went by for a drink. “We were talking to him in the dugout throughout the game,” second baseman Howie Kendrick said. “We didn’t mention what was going on because it’s kind of one of those unwritten rules. But we tried to have fun.”

• Patience: If you are batting after your pitcher records an out, take your time walking to the plate. Then, take a few pitches in your at-bat. That way your pitcher gets more time to recover from running the bases. Pitchers aren’t full-time players, and generally aren’t at the same level of conditioning as players in the day-to-day lineup.

• Brush backs: Don’t throw far inside to the opposing team’s pitcher, for two reasons. One, pitchers generally aren’t good hitters, so there’s a fair-play quality to intimidate them into moving away from the plate. Two, hitting the opposing pitcher will trigger retribution.

• Pitcher’s domain: Don’t step on the pitcher’s mound when running on and off the field, or at any point in the game. That’s the domain of one person — the pitcher.

• If you hit us, we hit you: When a batter gets hit, old-school rules say the pitcher for his team needs to return the favor. The challenge, though, is determining whether the initial hit-by-pitch was by accident or with malicious intent.

Don’t show up the umpire

• Players who disagree with a ball or strike call should ensure their displeasure doesn’t show up the umpire. Batters are expected to keep their backs toward the umpire, and pitchers should yell with their gloves over their faces. Umpires can be sensitive and quick to eject players from a game.

When you're hitting ...

• No celebration: In old-school baseball, a hitter who stood and watched a ball fly out of the stadium and tossed his bat in the air was likely to get hit by a pitch in his next plate appearance. Celebrating a homer was considered hot-dogging — a show of disrespect to the pitcher and the opposing team. In the American League playoffs in 2015, José Bautista of the Blue Jays tossed his bat in celebration after hitting a game-winning home run. Some considered the move in poor taste. Others said it was pure emotion, and Bautista was having fun.

• Behave while batting: Don’t show pride in hitting a ball that either hits the pitcher or comes close, or reaching base on a bad-hop ground ball that hits a fielder. Too sinister.

• Careful when you bunt: It’s a major no-no for batters to try to bunt their way onto base for a base hit to break up a no-hitter. In 2001, Ben Davis of the Padres violated the unwritten rule by bunting for an eighth-inning base hit to break up Curt Schilling’s perfect game. Bob Brenley, Schilling’s manager with the Diamondbacks, called it “chicken.”

When you're running ...

• The home run trot: Batters should run around the bases at a moderate pace with their heads down after hitting a home run, or risk being targeted for a show of disrespect.

• Don’t slide into first base: This was long considered showboating, but the rule isn’t as ironclad as it once was. It still causes heartburn among purists, though, some of whom contend it’s actually faster to run through the bag than to slide into it. And, most important, the player who slides is prone to injury.

• Don’t make it easy: On a bunt or soft grounder down the first base line, batters should run on the fair-territory side of the line. This forces the catcher or pitcher to throw around the runner, which makes the defensive play more difficult.

• Stay off the chalk: Don’t step on the base or foul lines when coming on or off of the field. It’s considered bad luck.

• Don’t take out the pitcher: Avoid contact when the pitcher covers home or first. Do you remember the last time a base runner took out a pitcher at home plate? Neither does anyone else. Even though the old rules aren’t enforced as strongly these days — at least not like they were when hard-edged pitchers like Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale wouldn’t blink about getting retribution by nailing violators with fastballs — this one is a holdover.

• Don’t make the last out at third base: Don’t attempt to steal third base with two outs or try to turn a double into a triple with two outs. The last out should never be made at third because it’s often just as easy to score from second base on a hit to

the outfield.

When you're winning ...

• Don’t steal: Stealing bases in a lopsided game is frowned upon from both sides. Doing it with a big lead is considered an attempt to run up the score, and therefore unsportsmanlike. Doing it while trailing prolongs the game and is a display of bad baseball IQ, because the team can’t risk losing an out while erasing the deficit. How big of a lead triggers the rule? Nobody knows. Nor does everybody follow the rule. Hall of Fame manager Whitey Herzog, who led the speedy St. Louis Cardinals teams of the 1980s, didn’t hesitate to instruct his players to steal. He argued that when the opposition would stop trying to hit home runs — its method to win — St. Louis would stop stealing. Those Cardinals featured speedy players such as Vince Coleman, Willie McGee and Ozzie Smith, and stealing bases was integral to their strategy. The 1985 team’s 314 stolen bases is the most by a National League team since 1912.

• Don’t send the runner: If your team has a significant lead, especially by more than double digits in youth games, it’s time to call off the dogs. Have runners go base-to-base, even if there’s a ball hit into the gap.

In general

• Don’t help: If the opposition is attempting to catch a pop fly near your dugout, don’t move. Don’t talk. The fielder is on his own. Of course, after the play is over, be a good sport and prevent the defender from falling awkwardly into your dugout.

• No playground stuff: Don’t use cheap tricks such as yelling, “I got it” when two opposing fielders are closing in on a fly ball, or shouting to an infielder to throw to the wrong base. It’s kid stuff — not even respectable enough to be called bush league.