It’s been a while since we had a good Unwritten Rules controversy in Major League Baseball.
Hitting your own catcher in the chest with a pitch on purpose because you’re angry with them seems like an Unwritten Rule nobody knew even existed. It’s tough knowing which of MLB’s Unwritten Rules are real and which aren’t because, well, nobody has ever written all of them down, as the joke goes. Then they’d be Written Rules, and there’s a PDF for those.
Houston Astros left-hander Framber Valdez certainly appeared to cross up catcher César Salazar with the intention of exacting punishment using a fastball to the chest protector when they couldn’t get on the same page in a loss to the New York Yankees this past week. Instead of hashing it out rationally, or even yelling incoherently like a normal mad person, Valdez appeared to resort to physical violence. Valdez might think he had a point: Being on the same page is important in baseball, because if you’re not, who knows who is reading what? Perhaps he just likes to read!
Being on the same page is especially important in the symbiosis that is the pitcher-catcher battery. They work together more than any other pair of teammates. It is so, Written and Unwritten.
Both players denied that Valdez did it on purpose, possibly because of the Unwritten Rule that you don’t throw your teammate under the bus (figuratively) in the media. Instead, you sort that stuff out amongst yourselves in the clubhouse. However, reports also emerged that other Astros teammates tried to sort it out by driving a figurative bus over Valdez after the game. Even they thought he did it with intent. No one confirmed that on the record because of the Unwritten Rules about keeping that stuff a secret. If the Astros punished Valdez further, they didn’t say so. You know why. Unwritten Rules.
It would be particularly diabolical, hitting your own catcher on purpose with a pitch. It’s likely happened before in the long and sordid history of MLB because ballplayers are human beings, and humans are capable of anything, especially if it’s bad. But it’s hard to think of examples of intra-battery violence, because one of the Unwritten Rules is not talking about doing diabolical stuff to your teammates. Unless it’s done in a tell-all book for money much later. Note: Those books are Written.
Valdez’s consequences should be handled earnestly, though, because pitchers and catchers enter into an Unwritten Pact that the ball will be thrown with the intention of both parties knowing where it’s supposed to go. It’s different with pitchers and hitters. There’s probably no wide-ranging Unwritten Rule that says you can’t hit a batter intentionally. That’s actually a Written Rule. There might be something in the Unwritten Rule Subsections about not hitting the opposing pitcher with the ball purposely when they bat, but those confrontations hardly happen anymore with the DH (a Written Rule) ruling both leagues. Shohei Ohtani notwithstanding.
There are Written Rules and Unwritten Rules about not hitting the umpire on purpose, but we know that’s happened before, at least that the umpire believed it was on purpose. Search it out on YouTube. It’s diabolical in its own way. But baseball can’t exist if the pitcher is trying to hurt their own catcher during the game. Hitting the ump is bad, but it can be worked around. The ump also can exact their own punishment, even on the spot.
Pitchers and catchers can’t be hostiles with opposing agendas. Being angry with each other is going to happen, because teammates screw up. Not that Salazar screwed up for sure, because Astros management was trying to put out a story that both parties were responsible for a miscommunication. Putting out a cover story is one of the Unwritten Rules too.
It should be noted that Valdez used a different catcher, Yainer Diaz, in his most recent start Sunday. No incidents were reported. The Astros can’t suspend Valdez in a pennant race (Unwritten Rule) but they could dress him up in catcher’s gear and scare the heck out of him.
The catcher has to be able to trust the pitcher with this one thing: that one won’t try to hurt the other with the ball. Anything else is incompatible with playing baseball.
Doesn’t anyone give a [care] anymore about the Unwritten Rules?
