On the same day Jorge L. Ortiz of USA TODAY Sports ran a piece about the ethnic divide in the MLB, Cleveland Indians infielder Jose Ramirez made headlines for exactly what Ortiz was talking about.
(We'll have a piece up regarding Ortiz's article in a few days, but we'll focus on Ramirez's incident right now.)
In Wednesday night's game, the Minnesota Twins were down 7-1 to the Indians in the bottom of the eighth inning. With a runner on first and two outs, Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis stepped into the batter's box, but the Twins decided to intentionally walk him to bring up Ramirez, who is batting a paltry .219/.291/.343 in 94 games this season.
Kipnis, on the other hand, is on fire. He's batting .302/.372/.452 in 150 games this season.
It's not very clear as to why the Twins felt they needed to walk Kipnis considering they needed to score six runs in the top of the ninth inning to have any sort of chance at winning the game, but they did anyway.
So Ramirez comes to the plate and blasts a three-run home run on the second pitch of the at-bat to put the Indians up 10-1. His showboating on his way to first base angered the Twins, and perhaps rightfully so. Many keep talking about how baseball's culture is not fun, too old school and unforgiving in terms of celebrating due to incidents in recent years with players showboating (slow trots out of the batter's box, bat flips, etc.).
Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with a good old bat flip or staring down a bomb once it comes off the bat. However, with that being said, there is a time and place for it.
And there was no place for Ramirez's actions, regardless if he felt "disrespected" because the Twins walked Kipnis to face him. Check out the video below:
After cranking the home run, Ramirez sauntered to first base with the bat still in his hand. He then threw the bat up in the air in the direction of the Twins' dugout, more so making it an issue of professionalism and sportsmanship.
How many times have we seen David Ortiz absolutely blast a bomb and throw his bat toward the Red Sox dugout? How many times have we seen Alex Rodriguez flip his bat behind him after shooting a laser out to left-center field? What about Giancarlo Stanton standing in the batter's box as he watches a moonbeam exit Marlins Park?
Here's Big Papi tossing his bat after a three-run homer during a tied game:
Here's A-Rod slowly walking out of the batter's box and tossing his bat after hitting a go-ahead grand slam against the Twins:
And here's Stanton watching the ball fly off his bat for the longest home run in Citi Field history:
The bottom line is that there's a time and place to conduct such showboating and celebrating, and Ramirez cranking a home run off of a pitcher with a 5.97 ERA to go up 10-1 in the bottom of the eighth inning has no place, especially when it's as blatant as throwing the bat directly in front of another team's dugout.
So when people like Colin Cowherd and others (NBC Sports' HardballTalk) defend such behavior, they're obviously not taking into account the circumstance. It's like celebrating a touchdown or a first down in the NFL when your team is up by 21 points late in the fourth quarter. There's no place for it. You're beating the other team, they're aware of it, and that's that. Rubbing it in is unsportsmanlike, and that has nothing to do with the unwritten rules of baseball, it has to do with being a professional. In fact, the NFL has penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct. The MLB doesn't.
For crying out loud, if anyone thinks Ramirez has the right to celebrate in that circumstance when he has played in 177 career games and owns a career batting average of .240, you need to sit down and grow up. Giancarlo Stanton has more home runs in six seasons than Ramirez has games played in three seasons.
This shouldn't even be an argument, and you're wasting everybody's time if you feel Ramirez was doing no harm with his foolish behavior.
