My first experiences watching baseball was the late 80’s. Back then, baseball had a code. If you show up a player, expect to he plunked. If you’re plunked, the middle infielders better be ready to be on the receiving end of a takeout slide. 

The idea of this behavior was to let the players police themselves on the field. If all else failed, the players would just have to resolve everything with a good old fashioned benches clearing brawl. This way of handling things has largely been legislated out of the game, but Sunday, we saw a return of it in the Blue Jays-Rangers game. 

As a matter of background, these two teams played a hard fought, five game ALDS. The Blue Jays win was highlighted by this:

Now, there’s some disagreement whether this bat flip had any impact on Sunday’s game. In any event, Sunday was the last regular season meeting between these two teams. Jose Bautista led off the eighth with the Rangers leading 7-6. He was hit with the first pitch of the inning. Here’s what ensued next:

Wow. 

Certainly, Bautista felt the Rangers threw at him. He had a very late, but still low, slide into Rougned Odor. There are three possible reasons for this:

1. Odor’s throw was in line with Bautista’s head forcing him to get down;
2. Bautista was trying to break up a double play; or 
3. Bautista felt the Rangers threw at him, and he was getting his pound of flesh. 

Whatever the case, Odor was offended, and he landed a right hook.  Keep in mind, this was no sucker punch. Bautista’s hands were up. It sparked an old fashioned benches clearing brawl. 

Of course, that didn’t end anything. Prince Fielder would be hit with the first pitch in the bottom of the eighth. It was an 83 MPH change-up. The benches emptied, but tensions didn’t escalate as Fielder took his place at first base. It was all over. 

Baseball has made many rules to try to prevent this all from happening. It’s why there are warnings. It’s part of the reason why the new slide rules are in place. The main reason for the new slide rules is Chase Utley is a dirty player and the Gane Two umpires in the NLDS had no idea what interference was. 

Upon review of Sunday’s game, you could say the rules worked. Bautista was called for interference. There were six ejections stemming from the incident. However, the rules didn’t work as intended. The players attempted to police themselves and all hell broke loose. In many ways it was a throw back to 30 years ago when incidents like this would happen. No, they were not common place or even likely. It was just possible. In today’s game, it didn’t seem like this was possible anymore. 

Overall, I don’t think anything that happened on the field has a place in baseball. There’s no reason to bean someone in the fashion the Rangers beaned Bautista if it was intentional. Late slides or throwing it at someone’s head is unnecessary. Furthermore, Odor’s punch shouldn’t happen on a baseball field. With that long caveat, I enjoyed it. 

It reminded me of the baseball I grew up watching.  It reminded me of a time when teams would use this as a rallying cry for the rest of the season. It reminded me of a time when teams generally disliked each other and wanted to beat each other’s brains in.  It reminded me of a time where the Mets were on top of the baseball world. So yes, I enjoyed it. 

However, one day of nostalgia is nice. What happened Sunday has no place on a baseball field, and I hope to never see it again.