Extra Innings: Unwritten rules are perfectly viable in sports

In sports, emotions often get the best of us. In the heat of the moment, with two teams stacked with some of the best talent in the world competing for the precious win, it’s easy to lose sight of proper behavior.

The wonderful thing about sports is that, to an extent, each sport has a way of policing itself, aside from the official’s interjection. Some are more blatant than others. Take hockey, for example. If you land a dirty hit on a star player, you better be ready to fight. In baseball, if you disrespect a pitcher by throwing your bat toward them after putting a ball into the bleachers, you better walk up to your next at bat with some extra padding.

These are the “unwritten rules.” There is a degree of respect in these rules that causes players to take action when they are disrespected. It doesn’t matter if a penalty is called or a player is ejected — the game has now become personal.

Yesterday, fans witnessed baseball’s unwritten rules in action. In a close game between the Royals and White Sox, Sox shortstop Tim Anderson launched a home run, threw his bat towards his dugout and exchanged frustrated words and looks with both the Royals catcher and pitcher.

I hope Anderson wore extra padding when he came up again in the sixth. Royals pitcher Brad Keller, abiding by the unwritten rules, delivered a 92 mph fastball to Anderson’s backside. As expected, the benches cleared, tempers flared and the managers were at each other’s throats.

In response to the incident, USA Today wrote an article titled “MLB’s problem: Let the kids play … or adhere to unwritten rules?” I want to address that question in this column. The unwritten rules of sports are essential to the game. Maybe that’s because I’m from Michigan and grew up playing hockey with Canadians. Hockey easily has the most vicious unwritten rules among major sports. It’s been that way for a long time.

Permitting fighting among players gives the game a way of policing itself and an outlet to release frustration. Referee interjection can only go so far, however players will be punished accordingly. The fear of having a player like Bob Probert or Darren McCarty give you the business if you land a dirty hit or show up a player is enough to prevent a lot of players from exhibiting that disrespect.

The same goes for baseball. The problem in baseball is that the umpire’s interjection is flawed. In hockey, players are allowed to settle their beef and are then given five minute penalties for fighting. There’s nothing like that in baseball. The umpire either tosses the player or he doesn’t. It is a complete judgement call, and too often that judgement is unfair.

It’s tough to look for a perfect solution in an imperfect situation. Players will never stop pimping homers, hitting each other or clearing the bench. If MLB wants to take action, it needs to devise a solution that allows for these unwritten rules to exist while standardizing a way to deal with players enforcing the unwritten rules.

Personally, I’m fine with how baseball runs right now. It’s not a perfect solution of punishment, but baseball is an imperfect game. Balls and strikes aren’t perfect, and neither are ejections.

A lot of fans, along with MLB, worry about players getting hurt from a pitcher beaming the batter. There is a good way to prevent most of that: Bring yourself back down to earth, and don’t disrespect the pitcher. I realize that this won’t solve all of the problems, but it is a good way to mitigate at least a significant portion of the risk.

My verdict: Adhere to the unwritten rules, but don’t let things get out of hand.

Sam Arslanian is a sophomore writing about sports. His column, “Extra Innings,” ran Fridays.