EDITOR’S CORNER
There are places which have so-called unwritten rules and no area has more than baseball.
One of the most understood of the unwritten rules is that when a pitcher is throwing a no-hitter you don’t lay down a bunt. You have to break it up “fair an square,” whatever that means.
Last week in a minor league game, Hartford led Trenton 3-0. Four Hartford pitchers hadn’t allowed a hit.
One out, ninth inning. Trenton’s Matt Lipka laid down a perfect push bunt to the right side, beating the throw. No-hitter over.
Both dugouts emptied. Security forces were employed. Twitter raged. Death threats to Lipka.
Finally, play resumed. Hartford won 3-0 but all the talk was about Lipka’s bunt single.
Who did Matt Lipka think he was? He was a member of a baseball team that was down three runs in the ninth inning and desperately needed base runners to have any chance of tying the game.
Ironically, among the people who understood was Rico Garcia, the starting pitcher for Hartford. “He (Lipka) was just doing what he had to do,” Garcia said.
It remains to be seen if “doing what he had to do” will affect Lipka’s career, if he will always be known, Harry Potter-like, as “The Man Who Bunted”.
Unwritten rules in baseball have mostly to do with manners and courtesy. There’s no rule to make an umpire dust off the plate after a catcher has received a painful foul ball. That gives the catcher a little bit of extra time to recover.
Another unwritten rule also references a no-hitter. If a pitcher is throwing one you never mention it, not on the bench, not on the air, never.
Why? Because the second you say it, somebody will get a hit. And then it will be your fault, not that curve that didn’t break.
But sometimes what would seem to be obvious places for baseball’s unwritten rules don’t show up at all.
A case in point. Chicago Cubs pitcher Monty Stratton lost a leg in a hunting accident but bravely worked his way back to pitching in the minor leagues on an artificial leg. You would think an unwritten rule would be “don’t bunt on Stratton.”
Nope, players bunted at, right, left, and around the hobbled pitcher. He fielded them the best he could and kept playing minor league baseball for several seasons.
Theory. Unwritten rules in baseball are a luxury which only those who have “made it” can afford.
Major league players might not bunt in a no-hitter, or on Monty Strattonthey are already in The Big Show—but the instances I’ve just given involve minor leaguers.
They are hoping to be on the way up or not fall any further down. To them obeying unwritten rules isn’t a matter of courtesy, it’s “to heck with unwritten rules, I’ve got to earn my next paycheck.”
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