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Solving the Sportsmanship Issue in Baseball, Step 1
Baseball has a sportsmanship issue. Pitchers are intentionally hitting batters (whatever happened to the Bob Gibson brushback pitch?). Batters are throwing helmets, balls, bats,
and general hissyfits, even though most of them wear more armor than SWAT team members. The era of the casual cheat (emery boards, vaseline) has moved into the era of the serious cheat (steroids).
It must be hard for parents to have their kids play sports like basketball, baseball, and football with the "heroes" of the game under indictment or arrest for assault- and drug-related charges. Thuggery
has invaded these big three sports — goon hockey seems tame by comparison to the antics of the big three.
But how can baseball get back its civility?
By taking a pointer from soccer. Bring in the yellow card. While to some extent, this has occurred (umpires warning both benches after intentional HBP), it needs to be more drastic and having bigger consequences.
Give the pitcher a yellow card for bitching about balls and strikes in a manner that shows up the umpire. Give the batter a yellow card for the same, or for taking 8 hours to get into the box (yes, you Nomar). Get a yellow card in two consecutive games — and you get suspended for the
next one automatically (five games for starting pitchers, two for relievers). Appeals must be heard immediately before the next game, or they can't be heard. Make the red card an even more dire situation — automatic 3 game suspension for position players, 10 game for starting pitchers, 5 for relievers, same appeal rules apply.
The current appeals rules are ridiculous. Players can drag on appeals as long as they want, and then suddenly drop it if they get a boo-boo. El Duque was handed a five game suspension but then still pitched in his spot, then drops the appeal. It's sad
when we have to give Torii Hunter kudos for not appealing his suspension for returning fire after being intentionally struck in the back.
Pitchers need to use the brushback pitch instead of the beanball — far too many players, like Biggio, Bonds, and Vaughn lean so far over the plate, they can get hit by a strike.
The umpires need to enforce rule 6.06(a) A batter is out for illegal action when (a) He hits a ball with one or both feet on the ground entirely outside the batter's box. If a batter hits a ball fair or foul while out of the batter's box, he shall be called out.
With many of the ball parks not drawing the inner line and batters intentionally rubbing out the line, umpires simply ignore this. Batters have also been creeping all the way to the back of the box as well. I think it would take someone slipping on the plate while striking a ball to get called on this. To solve this problem, have the groundscrew contantly rechalk the lines each inning.
Give a yellow card to the players who intentionally try to eliminate the line. Make a 6.06(a) call.
Umpires are responsible for the Conduct of the Game (see rule 9), and need to take more control of it. The Commissioner's office needs to back the umpires, not criticize them. The umpires are our rule enforcers — Bud Selig and the rest of the commissioner's office isn't on the playing field.
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