I recall Uecker explaining this years ago.Simple Torture wrote:Part of me thinks it has to do with the racial makeup of the player base--in a league that's still over 60% white, you don't get the common bad (and racially charged) press of players being "thugs" when they go onto the field of play to fight or even argue. The NBA and NFL have extremely strict rules in place to primarily avoid situations like that.Chris_H_2 wrote:i still can't figure out for the life of me how baseball, among virtually every sport i can think of, tolerates players leaving the bench (and bullpens) to participate in a fight without any repercussions.
If you don't allow the dugouts to empty, the batter is now 1 on 9 (yeah, hes the idiot who charged the mound) but youre going to have cases like Harpers where, he probably has every right to charge the mound. Every other sport, is 5 on 5 (basketball), 11 on 11 (football) generally an even field. And of course baseball has always prided themselves on policing themselves on the field.
Which of course leads to baseball and its unwritten rules. Couple nights ago someone on the Marlins stole 2nd late in the game when they were up 6 or 7. Larry Bowa let him know that that was not cool from the Phillies bench. Mattingly and whatever player it was had a talk after the game, said player called Bowa. Thanks for teaching me the unwritten rules. The next night the same guy was on 3rd in a lopsided game again (man the Phillies are horrible/not fun to watch AT ALL) and, on a wild pitch, said same player (cant remember who it was) just stood there. Didn't want to upset Larry again. But that's another case where, ya break the unwritten rules, you may get plunked later on. Gotta love it.
