Unwritten Rules Of Baseball

Baseball is my favorite sport, but like any sport, it has some things I don't quite understand, such as unwritten rules.  When I say unwritten rules, I mean like, no throwing above the head, or retaliating for a hit teammate.  Well, it's safe to say that the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers didn't give a damn about that yesterday because they played a baseball game yesterday that had everything: home runs, hit batters, ejections, bench clearing brawls.  It was crazy and something I've rarely seen before.  The only memorable game that comes to mind is in 2004, when the Red Sox and Yankees played a game with a bench clearing brawl.  That's right, the famous game with the Jason Varitek/A-Rod fight and Bill Mueller's heroics, which propelled them to the playoffs and eventually the World Series.

A trip down memory lane for those of you who don't remember or simply didn't watch baseball.  What a game this was!

So why talk about this with better sports topics, such as the Miami Heat getting demolished by the San Antonio Spurs, or the Stanley Cup Finals starting today?  One reason is because I don't want to overwhelm everyone reading, since odds are, they can find coverage of Lebron or the Cup on ESPN.  The other reason is because of what I said above.  I love baseball!  I love the simplicity of it, the unlimited length, the tradition, the fact that it's probably the most laid back and family friendly of all the four major sports, but I do not like what I saw yesterday.  I like good, competitive baseball, not people acting like punks.  It gives a bad image to the sport, which baseball doesn't need with their steroid controversy.

And briefly mentioning the Dodgers, what a mess they are.  Last year they traded for Adrian Gonzalez and Josh Beckett, which was a perplexing move, while this free agency, they just go out and sign everyone.  On paper, they look like a good team with Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, and the phenom Yasiel Puig, but their team stinks, showing that money can't make up for bad team chemistry.  Oh well, at least there's still Vin Scully, who is still a delight to listen to even at his age.  That's one bright spot to come out of what was a crazy night in LA.  Rules are there for a reason guys, and while baseball may have unwritten ones, play the game the right way, and stuff like this will never happen.