Any Questions?

          I have, from time to time, been perplexed, disappointed or irritated (and sometimes all three) by the sheer stupidity exhibited by some professional athletes. Coaches can sometimes come in a close second. It is unfortunate, but all too frequent, that sometimes the attitudes of these grown children percolate into the population in general, displacing such adult concepts as reason, restraint, civility and self-awareness.

       It is troubling to me, as exemplified by a most recent incident that, when an athlete is performing well and exercising their skills developed over years of practice, others will consider them deserving of being injured or hampered, simply because they are winning. Tonya Harding and her husband injuring Nancy Kerrigan is one such an example. Professional football and hockey abound with such louts, (Ndamukong Suh, Lyle Alzado, Conrad Dobler, Bill Romanowski, are a few of football's "roid rager" examples.)     

        While many sports require skill and coordination, there are several where high achievement is measured by being successful only about 1/3 of the time. Golf is one such; baseball is another. If a golfer won just a third of all tournaments entered, he’d be iconic. A baseball player who reaches base safely on a hit just a third of the time is a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame, with a lifetime .333 batting average. In fact, in the modern era only eight individuals have managed such a lifetime batting average.

        When a golfer is doing well, leading a tournament field, what is the setting? Generally, the crowd is urged to be quiet, and the golfer will step back and wait if that doesn’t happen. Tournament officials and will intervene if conditions are not appropriate. No one runs out of the crowd and hits the golfer in the shins with a putter. His or her playing partners are respectfully quiet and appropriately congratulatory when the player executes well.    

        Now let’s look at a professional baseball game which took place two days ago in Atlanta, Georgia. The division leading Braves were home standing against the hapless (21 ½ games behind them) Miami Marlins. For the Braves, a highlight of the season has been the performance of young left fielder Ronald Acuna, Jr. Acuna entered Wednesday’s game having hit 5 home runs in the previous four games, the last three of those games against The Marlins. Each dinger had been a leadoff home run.

        This brings me to the point of this essay. As manager of the Marlins, what are your options with regard to Acuna?  Well, you could intentionally walk him, or perhaps tell your pitcher, one Jose Arena, a journeyman, with a 3-12 record to date, not to give Acuna anything in the strike zone, even simply have your pitcher do his best and allow whatever happens to happen, or, and here’s the issue at hand, tacitly let him know it’s appropriate to throw at the batter, which Arena did, “plunking” Acuna in the elbow so blatantly that the league has suspended Acuna for six games and fined him an “undisclosed amount”.

         All of Arena’s protestation to the contrary is belied by the fact that it was the first pitch of the game to (and at) a guy who has owned Marlins pitching. It was almost assuredly not a decision made by Arena himself, although he’s been hung out to dry for it. It was not a “back him off the plate” throw either, but exactly what it looked like, hitting a batter as punishment for his skill. It was Happy Gilmore on the mound. Fortunately for Arena, Acuna was the adult on this occasion and did not go to the mound, bat in hand.

        The practice of throwing at (“plunking”) a batter for doing his best in the face of your team’s inadequate pitching has long been a nasty part of the game which good managers decry and poor pitchers and managers defend. It should be punished to a far more serious extent and consequence than it is. A baseball at 85 to 90 miles per hour is a deadly weapon, and while helmets now protect the heads of batters, other parts are unprotected. In the last 40 years at least 20 major league players have had careers ended or diminished by thrown baseballs. Fortunately, X-rays showed no joint damage to Acuna’s elbow in this case.

        So, enter one Keith Hernandez, former National League MVP and New York Mets broadcaster. The following night he actually said this: “You got (sic) to hit him. They’re killing you, you lost three games. He’s hit three home runs; you got to hit him. I’m sorry, people aren’t going to like that. You know, you got to hit him, knock him down.”   To the credit of others, these comments weren’t well received by most baseball folks, but they are indicative of an attitude which exists in baseball and other sports as well as recently seeping into much of public discourse.

         Let’s translate Hernandez’ comments into general terms: “This person, because of hard work and training has achieved a degree of skill which allows him to perform his job at a high level. He’s doing his best and we’re doing our best, but our team sucks, and we are not as capable. Rather than do what we can within the rules of the game to make ourselves better, let’s hurt or disadvantage the other person.”  Now read most recent “presidential” tweets. Any questions?