Quote:
Originally Posted by Skipaway
Actually, it's not about if a person has played baseball or not. It's about if a person is well-versed on the specific unwritten rules of some groups of American baseball players.
It's pretty common for Asian players in the US or American players in Asia to get these kind of things totally wrong, even though they've been playing baseball since childhood. These kind of things are totally regional and, as I said, don't really make sense other than the fact that people choose to adhere to them.
Not that Harper is an Asian player, but I do think a lot of baseball "traditions" are simply stupid and I wouldn't mind if those things die out with older generations.
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It has nothing to do with tradition. The guy is playing a sport and blowing a kiss at the pitcher after hitting a home run. Sure the pitcher can just stand there an take it, but in the heat of battle, I seriously doubt that will happen too often. A few years ago the Texas Rangers ate the contract of Vincente Padilla due to his habit of plunking hitters for no reason other than just feeling like it. They were worried that eventually his doing this would get one of their players hurt due to retaliation. Name me a team sport where retaliation doesn't occur? You can't.
The article did say that Harper was drilled with a pitch the day before, so maybe his actions were due to that. We don't know the whole story. There may have been a ton of jawwing going on, both on and off the field. Who knows. In the end, these are humans, not robots. Just know this, he won't being doing this stuff at the MLB level. He will have some very angry teammates if he does. Especially, the next best slugger that follows him in the order.