RateItAll: The Opinion Network

Brett acted like an idiot, but the actions of the umpires, and particularly the American league, were pretty bad.

The rule regarding pine tar had been on the books for years, but had never been enforced. This in itself is a serious problem, as it allows for this kind of incident at potentially crucial time.

An exact parallell exists in 1908 with the Merkles Boner incident, which wound up costing the Giants the pennant.

The league acted idiotically in not backing up the decision of the umpire crew, which was, according to the rules as written (though not normally enforced) absolutely correct.

Let me walk my wits here for a moment. In any totalitarian state there are hundreds of rules, governing many aspects of life and behaviour, many of which are not enforced regularly. Then one day a police captain, Gestapo agent, or army officer gets out of bed with a hangover, and bang, you've just broken 20 rules. The essence of a responsible state is legitimate rules enforced with an attempt at equity.

To return to baseball, it is, to my thinking, extremely unwise to have rules that are not enforced, because it allows this kind of gamesmanship, or arbitrary choice of enforcement.

There currently exists in baseball a situation rife for a similar, and possibly worse incident. The rules clearly state that a fielder (including the catcher) cannot impede the runner or block access to the plate or base without possession of the ball.

Now watch a major league game some time and watch a play at the plate. It is common for catchers to set up five feet down the third base line and wrestle the runner until help arrives, or allow them to touch everything in the stadium but the plate.

Its another outrageous moment waiting to happen.

I've commented about this in the past. The rule was very clear. It was intended to limit the amount of pine-tar (a grip enhancing, sticky goo) from covering the entire bat, strengthening the grain of the wood, enabling someone to hit the ball farther due to a foreign substance. The fact that no umps had enforced the rule previously is not pertinent.

When Brett attacked the ump from the dugout, he should have received either a 10 game suspension or a spanking, for acting like a little brat, certainly behavior not fitting of one of the game's great hitters. The fact that the idiotic and cowardly league president overturned the correct call made on the field by the umpire, a week later, is not unlike baseball's general reaction to the problem of steroid use. Perhaps the pattern has been noticeable for some time.

This one was weird all-around. It is technically true that a player is not supposed to have pine tar on their bat beyond a certain amount, but it seemed like real nitpicking and kind of a petty thing to do anyway. Don't see how George Brett, even if he did have too much pine tar on his bat, really did anything egregious here. It just seems highly unlikely to me that a fringe major leaguer for Kansas City would have been confronted with this, instead of one of the best players in the game at the time.