Unwritten: Bat Flips, the Fun Police, and Baseball's New Future - Hardcover

Knobler, Danny

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1629376485 ISBN 13: 9781629376486

Verlag: Triumph Books, 2019

Inhaltsangabe

Don't bunt in a blowout. Don't pimp your home runs. Act like you've been here before. In Unwritten: Bat Flips, the Fun Police, and Baseball's New Future, national baseball writer Danny Knobler dives deep beyond the brushbacks and brawls to examine shifting attitudes towards Major League Baseball's once-sacred player codes. What emerges in the process is a much larger story, one of a more youthful, more exuberant, more diverse game in the midst of a fascinating culture clash. Featuring countless interviews with some of baseball's biggest names, including current and former major-league players, coaches, scouts, and journalists, Unwritten is a revealing, thoroughly of-the-moment portrait of a sport grappling with the loaded question of what it means to play the game the right way. Fans will not want to miss these varied, inside perspectives on America's pastime marching into the future.

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Danny Knobler is a national lead MLB writer for Bleacher Report. He has covered baseball for more than 30 years for Booth Newspapers, CBSSports.com, ESPN.com, and other publications. He is the author of Numbers Don't Lie: The Biggest Numbers in Detroit Tigers History.

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Unwritten

Bat Flips, the Fun Police, and Baseball's New Future

By Danny Knobler

Triumph Books LLC

Copyright © 2019 Danny Knobler
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-62937-648-6

Contents

Introduction: What Are the Unwritten Rules ... and What Happened to Them?, 
1. Respect the Game, and Play to Win, 
2. When Numbers Change the Game, 
3. Some Teams Get It, 
4. Leave Your Ego at the Door, 
5. As Adrian Beltre Proves, You Can Still Have Fun, 
6. When a Bat Flip Can Lead to a Bloody Lip, 
7. Here's Some Flipping History, 
8. If Baseball Is "Tired," Shouldn't It Be Okay to Show Some Emotion?, 
9. You Can Earn the Right to Celebrate, 
10. The Puig Way to Play Baseball, 
11. Loving the Game the Latin Way, 
12. There Will Always Be Some Culture Clashes, 
13. "You Should Hear the Screams" for Javier Baez, 
14. Jose Urena, Keith Hernandez, and an Old-School View Fading Away, 
15. Is There Still Room for a Purpose Pitch?, 
16. Kenley Jansen's Blacklist, 
17. Torey (Just Like Earl) Takes a Stand, 
18. When It's Still an Eye for an Eye, 
19. Is There a Statute of Limitations on Revenge?, 
20. When Even Teammates Don't Like It, 
21. Don't Call Me Coach (But You Can Come Talk to Me), 
22. The Kids Are Alright (and It's Okay to Hear from Them), 
23. Watch What You Say (or Tweet), 
24. Why Can't We Be Friends?, 
25. When There's a Fight, You'd Better Be There, 
26. If You Show Someone Up, There's Going to Be Trouble, 
27. The A-Rod Rules (or Stay off My Mound), 
28. The Jeter Rules (or Acting Can Win You More than an Oscar), 
29. Every Player Can Be "Johnny Hustle", 
30. Deception Is (Sometimes) Part of the Game, 
31. Is It Okay to Steal (and We're Not Talking Bases)?, 
32. It's Only Cheating If You Get Caught, 
33. Can We Say "No-Hitter?", 
34. Can You Bunt for the First Hit?, 
35. You Don't Pull a Pitcher Before He Allows a Hit (Unless You Do), 
36. Starting Off with an Opener, 
37. The Wade Miley Game (or When a Probable Starter Only Faces One Batter), 
38. You Can Start, But You Can't Finish, 
39. Bullpen by Gabe, 
40. Bullpen by Gabe, Part II (or Position Players Can Pitch, Too), 
41. If a Big Game Is Tied, Shouldn't Your Best Pitcher Pitch?, 
42. When You Play for One Run (or Is the Bunt Dead?), 
43. Thou Shall Not Sacrifice an Out, 
44. Welcome to Japan, Where the Bunt Still Lives, 
45. You Don't Have to Concede a Run (Even in the First Inning), 
46. You Can Make the First Out at Third Base (If You Play for Joe Maddon), 
47. You Can Pick Your Poison, 
48. You Can Break Up a Double Play, 
49. You Can Argue a Call (but Many Don't), 
50. You Can Run (but You'd Better Know the Score), 
51. When You Sit to Wear a Crown, 
52. There's No Need to Say You're Sorry, 
53. It's the Players Who Police the Game, 
54. Baseball Is Still a Game of Numbers, 
55. When It Comes Down to It, It's Still about Playing the Game Right, 
Acknowledgments, 
Sources, 

CHAPTER 1

Respect the Game, and Play to Win

IT DIDN'T TAKE LONG FOR JUSTIN VERLANDER to realize how fortunate he was.

Fortunate that the fading Detroit Tigers decided to trade him in August of 2017. Fortunate that the Houston Astros, after not showing much interest either at the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline or through almost all of August, decided on the final day of the month that Verlander was the missing piece in their carefully built puzzle.

Verlander was fortunate no team had put in a waiver claim, which would, in effect, have kept the Tigers from trading him that month. And also that when the Tigers came to him to seek his approval — he had full no-trade protection — he agreed to the deal. It went right down to the last minute — even the last seconds, Verlander would say later — but he said yes.

It was a fortunate decision, and not just because two months later Verlander would be celebrating the first World Series championship of his 13-year major-league career.

It was more than that. It was that Verlander had stumbled onto a team that played the game of baseball the way he played it, that followed the game's unwritten rules as he had learned them.

"This team does," Verlander said, after he had been with the Astros for nearly a full year. "Everybody [with the Astros] does."

The Astros, for all their young talent and new-school embrace of analytics, were still old school when it came to the things that mattered most. They still believed in playing the game hard and playing it right, in respecting the game and respecting their opponents.

And most of all, they believed in playing to win.

The best teams still do, even if many of the details of how they do it have changed. Baseball has legislated against hard takeouts at second base and bowling over the catcher to try to score a run. The high-and-tight fastball as an attempt to intimidate has more or less left the game. Beanball wars are much less common, with at least one major-league manager telling his pitchers he doesn't believe in intentionally throwing at batters. What once would have been seen as over-the-top celebrations are accepted without a second thought, and rookies come to the big leagues without even once being told to sit down, shut up, and know your place.

The details have changed. The bigger picture hasn't.

Talk to prominent major leaguers, from veterans like Verlander to kids like Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, and one of the words you hear most often is "respect."

"You always ask yourself, 'Is it disrespectful to my teammates? Is it disrespectful to the game?'" said Walt Weiss, who played 14 seasons in the major leagues and later coached and managed.

Respect the game. Respect the uniform and the organization it represents. Respect your teammates, but also your opponents.

"I respect people who respect me," said Javier Baez, an emerging star with the Chicago Cubs.

Winning teams and winning players do all of that. Verlander found all of that when he came to the Astros, who were 80–53 the day he arrived.

And rather than the culture being the result of the winning, Verlander came to believe it was the other way around.

"I think it's the cause of winning," he said. "When everybody comes in, no matter whether you've got one day [of service time in the big leagues] or 15 years, you know everybody is there to kick the other team's ass every day. That's the only reason you're here. It's a different feeling. The best teams do [have that]."

The team Verlander left in Detroit was no longer one of the best. The Tigers had gone to the World Series twice and the postseason two other times in Verlander's first nine seasons. but the team he left had a 58–74 record, on the way to 98 losses.

The Tigers under Jim Leyland had been one of the teams that did things the right way. Leyland demanded it, and he was able to get his players to buy into it.

Verlander found that the Astros under A.J. Hinch were the same way. So did Gerrit Cole, when he arrived from the Pittsburgh Pirates after a January 2018 trade.

"It's 25 guys playing extremely hard every day," Cole said. "That's kind of an understatement. It boils down to having players with talent, but there's a focus, a preparation that goes into the mindset to be able to go all out."

Cole pointed to Astros right fielder Josh Reddick.

"That guy drills the cutoff man...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Triumph Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1629376485
• ISBN 13: 9781629376486
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchpark GmbH; gpsr@buchpark.de; ; Krügerweg 1; Trebbin; Brandenburg; 14959; Deutschland