The Baseball Codes

by Jason Turbow

  What’s the status of the bullpen? When Los Angeles manager Grady Little heard complaints about Kenny Lofton’s steal of second while his Dodgers held a 5–1, ninth-inning lead over San Francisco in 2006, his response was simple: “Has anyone here seen our bullpen? We have to keep doing that.” Sure enough, the very next night San Francisco scored four runs in the ninth to beat the Dodgers, 6–5.

  “The other team doesn’t know what I’ve got in the bullpen,” said infielder-turned-coach Jose Oquendo. “If my closer or two or three of my relievers aren’t available that day, we might have to play the game more aggressively.”

  How well is my team hitting? After Counsell stole second against Philadelphia with a 7–1 lead in 2003, Diamondbacks manager Bob Brenly justified it with the sentiment that his offense was not exactly a powerhouse. “We weren’t trying to incite them or rub it in their faces,” he said. “We’ve been scuffling to score runs all season and it was still early enough where we couldn’t [assume a victory].”

  How good is the starting pitcher, and how well is he holding up? This supersedes the bullpen question, should the starter be throwing well enough to remove the relief corps from the equation. A four-run lead behind Sandy Koufax contrasts starkly with a four-run lead behind a middle-of-the-road starter.

  What does the matchup look like? When Phil Garner took over as manager of the Brewers in 1992, only one of his players, Greg Vaughn, ended up with more than twelve homers. Garner did, however, have a group of guys who could run. With that in mind, he put on a perpetual green light, sending runners whenever and wherever he could. Milwaukee ended up leading the majors with 256 stolen bases, and their ninety-two wins were good for second place in the American League East. Garner finished second to Tony La Russa in manager-of-the-year balloting.

  His freewheeling style was not universally appreciated, however, especially by Tigers manager Sparky Anderson, who was outspokenly critical of Garner’s run-at-all-costs style.

  “Ping and run, ping and run—that was our game,” said Garner of his team, which finished behind all but one AL club in home runs. “Sparky’s old-school,” he added. “I stole one night with a five-run lead in about the sixth inning, and one of [Anderson’s] coaches said that our running game bordered on ridiculous. One of my coaches had a nice comment on that, saying, ‘We have to get on base, steal second, and steal third before we’re in scoring position. Detroit’s in scoring position when they walk to the plate.’” Indeed, Detroit—led by thirty-homer hitters Cecil Fielder, Rob Deer, and Mickey Tettleton—led the league in longballs, more than doubling Milwaukee’s output on the season.

  The volume of the conversation grew so loud that Garner sought out Anderson to explain himself before the teams played one day in Milwaukee. “Sparky, God only knows, you’re the dean of baseball,” he recalls saying. “I would not try to do anything to embarrass you. But I need to tell you that I’m not going to go home at night thinking I shut a ballgame down and let you guys get back in to win it. I can’t sleep with myself that way. I understand the way the game’s been played. I played it that way for a number of years myself. But it’s a different era.”

  Anderson responded that in his book, such tactics were considered to be disrespectful and inflammatory.

  Garner’s comeback was unequivocal. “It’s your job to stop me,” he said. “If you can’t stop me, then I’m playing until I feel comfortable. And if I don’t feel comfortable with a ten-run lead, then by God I’m running. And if you take exception, fine, you take exception. You do what you have to do and we’ll do what we have to do.”

  For what it’s worth, the Brewers finished seventeen games ahead of Detroit that season.

  In a game in 1996, the Giants trailed Los Angeles 11–2 in the ninth inning, and decided to station first baseman Mark Carreon at his normal depth, ignoring the runner at first, Roger Cedeno. When Cedeno, just twenty-one years old and in his first April as a big-leaguer, saw that nobody was bothering to hold him on, he headed for second—by any interpretation a horrible decision.

  As the runner, safe, dusted himself off, Giants third baseman Matt Williams lit into him verbally, as did second baseman Steve Scarsone, left fielder Mel Hall, and manager Dusty Baker. Williams grew so heated that several teammates raced over to restrain him from going after the young Dodgers outfielder.

  The least happy person on the field, however, wasn’t even a member of the Giants—it was Dodgers hitter Eric Karros, who stepped out of the batter’s box in disbelief when Cedeno took off. Karros would have disapproved even as an impartial observer, but as the guy who now had a pissed-off pitcher to deal with, he found his thoughts alternating between anger toward Cedeno and preparing to evade the fastball he felt certain was headed his way. (“I was trying to figure if I was going to [duck] forward or go back,” said Karros after the game. “It was a 50–50 shot.”) Giants pitcher Doug Creek, however, in a display of egalitarian diplomacy, left Karros unmarked, choosing instead to let the Giants inflict whatever retribution they saw fit directly upon Cedeno. (Because it was the ninth inning, nothing happened during that particular game.)

  At second base, Scarsone asked Cedeno if he thought it was a full count, and the outfielder responded that, no, he was just confused. “If he’s that confused, somebody ought to give him a manual on how to play baseball,” said Baker after the game. “I’ve never seen anybody that confused.”

  In the end, it was Karros who saved Cedeno. When he stepped out of the box, as members of the Giants harangued the bewildered baserunner, Karros didn’t simply watch idly—he turned toward the San Francisco bench and informed them that Cedeno had run without a shred of institutional authority, and that Karros himself would ensure that justice was administered once the game ended. Sure enough, as Cedeno sat at his locker after the game, it was obvious to observers that he had been crying. Though the young player refused to comment, it appeared that Karros had been true to his word. “Ignorance and youth really aren’t any excuse,” said Dodgers catcher Mike Piazza, “but we were able to cool things down.”

  This happens more frequently than one would expect. Said pitcher Jack McDowell: “It’s amazing, but there are actually guys [in the major leagues] who still just don’t know.” There are many reasons for this. Fifty years ago, even star players spent up to six years in the high minors before reaching the big leagues, during which time they were initiated into the ways of the Code. These days, the minor leagues are a one- or two-year stop for top players. Because the minors serve mainly as a training ground, coaches have players do things like steal bases at inopportune times, simply to provide extra learning opportunities. Though blatant Code violations are still noted, the gray areas (a lead of between four and seven runs, for example, during the seventh inning or earlier) are almost uniformly glossed over.

  “My first year in pro ball was in Grand Forks, North Dakota [in 1962], and that was just about the first thing our coach, Bob Clear, talked about,” said former Tigers catcher Jim Price. “Today, it’s just not as strong, and players have to pick up that stuff wherever they can.”

  Aggressive behavior on the base paths isn’t limited to steals, of course; taking an extra base on a hit to the outfield can be just as damning. Nobody faults standard station-to-station baseball in the late innings of a blowout game—runners advance one base on a single, two on a double, and score on a triple—but going first-to-third or second-to-home on a single won’t win many friends in the opposing dugout. Rangers manager Ron Washington had a firm rule for these situations during the decade he spent directing traffic as the third-base coach for the Oakland A’s: If a play was close enough to force a slide—even if Washington thought the runner would be safe—that runner didn’t go. “But if he can walk across home plate and there won’t be a play on him, I’m not stopping him,” he said. “That’s baseball.”

  Not everyone is restricted by such limits. In a 2003 game against the Marlins at Fenway Park, Boston’s Todd Walker raised hackles on the Florida bench by t
agging up from third base on a shallow fly ball by catcher Doug Mirabelli. His team led 21–5 at the time. Though Walker defended his actions after the game—“I lose respect for [the Marlins] if they’re upset that we’re tagging,” he said—Boston third-base coach Mike Cubbage was a bit more contrite. “I can see why they would [be upset] …,” he said. “[But] if I don’t send the guy, [Red Sox hitters] are not going to be happy. It’s a fine line.”

  If there was a mitigating factor for Boston, it came in the first inning, when the Red Sox set a record by scoring ten runs before Florida pitchers could record an out. Eighteen batters into the frame, three Marlins hurlers had given up thirteen runs, twelve hits, and four walks; a base hit by Johnny Damon in his third at-bat of the inning brought home Boston’s fourteenth run. At that point, Cubbage decided to stanch the bleeding. Despite its being a shallow single, and even though the runner at second, Bill Mueller, was among the slowest men on the team, Cubbage sent him chugging toward home, where he was thrown out by several steps. As Mueller headed back to the dugout, the inning finally, mercifully, over, Marlins catcher Ivan Rodriguez patted him on the back in a “Hey, thanks” kind of way.

  That’s the unpredictable nature of the unwritten rules—while one person feels he’s doing something appropriate, even benevolent, his opponent may well feel the opposite way. Rodriguez’s apparent appreciation for Mueller’s kamikaze dash for the plate could have easily turned into something much darker had he mistaken it for another slap in the face in an inning already full of them. Had Mueller tried to take Rodriguez out by slamming into him during the play, it would likely have precipitated a brawl. It’s not like that hadn’t happened before.

  Just two weeks earlier, in fact, Reds third-base coach Tim Foli waved home Adam Dunn from second on a Ken Griffey, Jr., single while Cincinnati held a 10–0 lead over Philadelphia. Foli, however, was playing strictly by the Ron Washington rulebook—Dunn was going to score standing up, and to hold him would have deprived Griffey of an RBI. In fact, as Foli watched the play unfold, he couldn’t see any option but to send the runner: The outfielder’s throw missed the cutoff man, and the second baseman had to scamper to get to the ball. There was no way his throw would come close to beating Dunn.

  Except that Dunn, sensing Foli’s lack of urgency, slowed down considerably, allowing the defense time to recover. By the time he recognized his mistake, he was just steps away from catcher Mike Lieberthal, who was standing in the base path, ball in hand. At that point, Dunn—a six-foot-six, 240-pound former football player for the University of Texas—reacted instinctively, putting everything he had into a brutal collision. And though he didn’t succeed—Lieberthal held on for the second out of the inning—when Dunn next came to bat he was thrown at by reliever Carlos Silva, and charged the mound.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do there,” said the slugger after the game. “Stop and let him tag me out? Slide? I think I did the right thing.” That, though, is the essence of the Code: Even the best-intended plays can go awry, and the next thing a pitcher knows, there’s a Big 12 football player chasing him across a baseball diamond.

  Inappropriate aggression is hardly limited to the base paths. Hitters are also governed by the Code, with specific sections covering both type of swing and when it’s employed.

  Take a game between the Twins and the Red Sox in 2006, which Minnesota led 8–1 in the bottom of the eighth inning. With two outs and nobody on base, Torii Hunter drew three quick balls to start his at-bat against Red Sox reliever Rudy Seanez. The last thing a pitcher wants to do with his team down by a wide margin late in the game is walk batters, which not only suggests unnecessary nibbling but extends a game that players want to end quickly. When a count gets to 3-0, as it did with Hunter, it’s a near-certainty that the ensuing pitch will be a fastball down the middle.

  The unwritten rulebook does not equivocate at this moment, prohibiting hitters in such situations not just from swinging hard, but from swinging at all. Hunter did both, and his cut drew appropriate notice on the Minnesota bench. “After he swung I said to him, ‘Torii, you know, with a seven-run lead like that, we’ve got to be taking 3-0,’” said Twins manager Ron Gardenhire. “He honestly had not even thought about it.”

  “I wasn’t thinking,” admitted Hunter. “I just wanted to do something. I knew a fastball was coming, and if I hit a double or whatever, we could get something going. I was just playing the game. I got caught up in it.” The incident serves to illustrate the depth of the Code’s influence. Hunter was generally aware of the unwritten rules, and except for rare instances of absentmindedness abided by them—while simultaneously disdaining much about their very existence. “Man on second, base hit, and you’re winning by eight runs, you hold him up at third,” he said. “You play soft, and I hate that part of the game. I hate that you don’t keep playing the way you’re supposed to, but you have these unwritten rules that you don’t run the score up on guys. Well, okay, what if they come back? The runs we didn’t score, now we look bad. We don’t think about that. At the same time, those rules have been around a long time, and if you don’t fly by them, you’ll probably take a ball to the head, or near it.

  “You don’t want to embarrass anybody, but what’s embarrassment when you’re trying to compete? There’s no such thing as embarrassment. You’re out there to try to win, no matter what the score looks like. Whether it’s 4–3 or 14–3, you’re trying to win. I’ve seen guys come back from 14–3 and win the game 15–14. If I go out there and try not to embarrass you and you come back and win, I look like the dummy.”

  It’s a powerful system that forces an All-Star to override his competitive instincts for a code in which he does not believe. If one wants to avoid retribution, one must embrace the unwritten rules; barring that, Hunter learned, an act of contrition can suffice.

  After the game, Gardenhire took the outfielder to the visitors’ clubhouse to speak to Red Sox manager Terry Francona, trying to wipe away the potential for hard feelings. To abide by the unwritten rule that bars opposing players from the locker room, the meeting took place in a rear laundry room in the bowels of the Metrodome. There Hunter informed both managers that he had swung out of inattention, not disrespect.

  “We wanted to make sure [Francona] understood,” said Gardenhire. “I went there to let him know that I know the game too. It’s a manager’s responsibility when a player swings 3-0 to make sure the player understands that. I wanted him to know we didn’t give a sign for him to swing away, that Torii just made a mistake. I thought that it was good for Torii to explain it to him, so I took him over.”

  Francona brushed it off as no big deal, saying that his mind had been wrapped around devising ways for the Red Sox to come back in the final frame and that he hadn’t even noticed. He did, however, express his appreciation for the visit. And the rationale worked. It appeased the members of the Red Sox who had noticed—there were several—and no bean-balls were thrown the following day.

  “You see those types of things and you know it’s being taken care of internally,” said Red Sox pitching coach Al Nipper. “You say, Hey, it’s an honest mistake, it wasn’t something intentional, where the guy’s trying to show you up. We all make mistakes in this game. Ron Gardenhire is a class manager, and that was a true coaching moment for him…. I guarantee you, that was a moment he probably didn’t relish to have to do with a veteran, but he had to do it.”

  There are some in the game who feel the same way about swinging at the first pitch in an at-bat while holding a big lead. Some hard-liners even insist that swinging at a 2-0 pitch with such a lead is too much. “You want to get greedy as a hitter, but you don’t want to embarrass anybody,” said Doug Mientkiewicz, who is just such a Code warrior. “Taking big swings and falling over the plate is along the lines of disrespecting somebody else.”

  “You don’t cherry-pick on the other team,” said Sparky Anderson. “You don’t take cripples. Three-oh, he’s struggling, he’s got to lay the ball in there
. Don’t do it to the man. He’s got a family, too.”

  In 2006, the Washington Nationals limped into San Francisco with a MASH unit where their catching corps should have been. Starting catcher Brian Schneider suffered a debilitating lower-back strain in Los Angeles a day earlier, and backup Matt LeCroy had been released eleven days previous. That left only one player on the roster with catching experience—Robert Fick, primarily a first baseman who had caught in 132 games over eight previous big-league seasons.

  In the fourth inning, however, it all came apart. Fick, on first after singling, tore rib cartilage diving back to the bag on a pickoff throw. Had there been another catching option for Nationals manager Frank Robinson, Fick would have come out of the game immediately. As it was, Fick’s injury prevented him from swinging a bat, but he was still able to squat and catch, so he stayed in.

  The single had been part of a five-run rally that gave Washington a 6–1 lead. But after catching the bottom of the fourth, Fick was in such serious pain that Schneider volunteered to come off the bench, bad back and all, to take over. He made it as far as the on-deck circle, where he was preparing to bat in Fick’s spot with two outs in the fifth. Within moments, however, Nationals hitter Damian Jackson lined a foul ball directly into Schneider’s right wrist, giving him injuries in two places and sending him back to the dugout. There was no other option—Fick had to bat for himself. Which leads to a question: What does a hitter do when he can’t swing a bat?

  The answer: He bunts. It was Fick’s only alternative, short of watching every pitch he saw. There were two problems, however. One was that Fick pushed his first bunt attempt foul, leaving him standing at the plate and awaiting the next pitch from San Francisco starter Noah Lowry. The other was that neither Fick nor anyone else in the Nationals dugout told the Giants what was going on. All Lowry saw was a player bunting after a five-run rally that broke the game open. He drilled Fick with his next pitch.