MLB honors Tim Anderson the way it honored Jackie Robinson: By telling him to shut up

That's ridiculous. The hack writer talking about "prior clearance" is also ridiculous.

eta: and your thread title is...wait for it...ridiculous

 

There's no excuse for directing that language at someone.

I fail to see any reasonable reason for Anderson to complain.

Don't say those things.

 

But not the rest of it? Ridiculous!

 

Could you imagine if the NBA and NFL had these inane unwritten rules?

No Curry shimmy...then no CP3 shimmy in response...no Harden shimmy after he sends Rubio tumbling. No stare downs, no posing over guys you've just dunked on, no Mutumbo finger wag...

In the NFL, no sack celebrations, no first down celebrations, no TD dancing...nothing that 'shows up' the opponent.

It's just silly that a plain old flip of a bat gets teams so 'triggered'. I saw the highlights of that whole thing and it all started because of a batflip. Baseball players comparatively look a little soft. I just saw an NBA game where Westbrook mocked his opponents several times through a game and there's no fuss about it. Just imagine how boring the NBA would be if everyone had to respect the game. When asked about OKCs antics Dame thought they were 'funny'.

With that said, it's beyond silly to invoke Jackie Robinson here. The pitcher shouldn't have hit the hitter (and bat flipping should not be an excuse to hit batters) and Tim probably shouldn't have said what he said, they should both get suspensions, and the commish should tell them all to lighten up. It's just a bat flip, you got rocked, suck it up and get the next hitter out.

 

When Tiger Woods hit the green in 2 at the Masters did he flip his iron in the air?

Different sports have different rules and etiquette, I don't know why this is so hard to understand.

 

I wouldn't care if he did and if he did that is then no excuse to throw a golf ball at him.

You know good and well that if Rubio punched Harden or tried to injure him after getting mocked that no one would accept this or be cool with it or blame Harden for shimmying on the corpse of his opponent. Only in baseball does hurt feelings give you an excuse to try and hurt an opponent and people just accept it. This is not so hard to understand.

 

Headhunting is no bueno. Dotting a guy in the ass or brushing him back is how you do it.

As far as the "only in baseball"...you might want to watch an NFL game someday.

 

I commented in another thread comparing his 1 game suspension for saying what he said to Yuli's 5 game suspenstion for making the eye gesture.

I'd be interested to hear MLB's reasoning.

 

NFL teams will target a player to get them out of games...it's not legal of course but if hurting Tom Brady gives you a better shot at going to the superbowl then that's what you do (or at least, used to do, now you can't touch QBs so...). It's a violent sport, so you mock and insult your opponent at your own risk knowing that you will be seeing that opponent on the next play. Usually what starts big fights is when guys go at knees and dirty plays, or guys with a long history between them, that's in basketball too. Not a bat flip.

I don't know if it is an often thing that NFL players get hurt feelings over disrespectful gestures...it's the old thing that if you don't want them celebrating in your endzone then stop them from scoring. I think because these other sports are used to it people playing these sports are used to showboating and trash talking. This is how Harden can drop a body, stare at said body, then lick his lips and it is nothing but entertainment for everyone involved...except for Wesley Johnson, although there's a good chance he laughs at it too. Baseball players take this bat flipping thing a notch too seriously.

You don't want the guy flipping his bat then sit him down.

I mean, I wouldn't agree that there is no place for this in baseball, we're talking about a sport where one of its most famous moments is when a guy pointed to the stands and called his shot. That's disrespect on the final level. Plus, the MLB basically creates highlight reels of guys flipping their bats. It's great entertainment. People love this kind of stuff, welcome to the show.

 

NHL faints...