Made To Be Broken

There are certain rules in major league baseball...and I'm not talking about the balk rule or the save rule or the stupid rule that awards home field in the World Series to the league that wins the All Star Game...I'm talking about those "unwritten rules". You know the ones: don't dig in too deep at the plate, don't admire your home runs, don't steal a base when you're up by 25 runs (except in Coors Field), and don't refuse to wear the clown uniform for hazing day. All these rules are in a book that Bob Gibson wrote...all right, maybe he didn't write it, but he certainly enforced it. Break an unwritten rule, get dusted. And it used to be that players got dusted for a lot less than what they get dusted for now. The modernization and the raised fraternization of professional athletes has toned down the brushbacks a wee bit.

But the fact that Lastings Milledge's high fives down the right field line has become not just an issue, not just a misdemeanor offense for which he received a small slap on the wrist by Willie Randolph and Cliff Floyd, but has reached the national television level by being discussed on Baseball Tonight, has this blogger shaking his head.

Everybody that comes into the majors needs a veteran like Floyd to teach them how to be a big leaguer...and not necessarily to teach them how to play baseball. Seeing that Milledge has had some problems in the past (problems that are a tad overblown if you ask me), and keeping in mind that Timo Perez once played for this team and pissed off countless veterans and opponents, I understand that the Mets organization wants to take extra care in the education of Lastings Milledge. After all, you can do a lot worse than having Cliff Floyd as your baseball mentor.

But when I see something like Milledge high fiving a few fans down the right field line without being a showboat about it by pounding his chest and proclaiming "look at me...I'm bad", I have to ask what exactly the big problem is. Giants reliever Steve Kline mentioned that some of the Giants weren't happy with Milledge's actions. Well, some of those Giants should have never given up a game tying home run when their catcher calls for a low and outside waste pitch...how 'bout that! As for Kline, when he played for the St. Louis Cardinals he was publicly insubordinate towards his manager by flipping Tony LaRussa the bird in full view of 50,000 paying customers, and many more television viewers. So let's see...high fiving fans vs. flipping the bird towards your manager. Hmmmmmm, you tell me what's worse.

Now in terms of the attention this is getting...let me ask this: If Lastings Milledge didn't have that little problem in the minor leagues...if Lastings Milledge didn't introduce himself to the major leagues by wearing a big wooden cross...if Lastings Milledge didn't wear cornrows and didn't have an ever so slight swagger about him, would his high fives be an issue? Sure it might be an issue within the clubhouse...Cliff Floyd and Willie Randolph would probably still pull him aside and tell him that might not be the best idea in the future. But would it be the the subject of the first few paragraphs of the AP recap of a game that included two David Wright home runs, two home runs in the tenth inning, and Barry Bonds? Would it be talked about on Baseball Tonight? (By the way, it should be noted that of all the panelists, only John Kruk had a problem with the high fives...and John Kruk, it should also be noted, is a man who once sold his uniform number for a case of beer.) Would Lastings be ripped apart by Francesa and Russo on Monday? (You know that those two buffoons are going to take Milledge to task during Monday's show. Count on it.)

I kind of liken this to the institution of the NBA dress code. To me, the NBA dress code was never a racial issue as others think...it was about one player: Allen Iverson. Iverson, with his posse that always seems to get into trouble, with all his tattoos, and his rants about practice, was always the poster boy for the bad behavior of NBA players, and to me that was a tad unfair. So in my opinion, the dress code had Allen Iverson in mind...nobody else.

In the same light, the high fives are only an issue because it's Milledge, an up and coming star with a slightly tainted background, that did it. Yeah, part of it is because he's a rookie, but it's also the reputation that Lastings has been unfairly saddled with in the minors, it's the swagger that he plays his game with, and it's the way he looks and the way he wears his hair and his wooden jewelry. If I remember correctly, a young rookie named Melvin Mora high fived fans down the right field line after making a lights out throw to save a run in the thirteenth inning of the grand slam single game. Nobody made peep number one about that, and the Mets tied at that point as well. And if I remember correctly again, nobody dusted Melvin Mora for it in his remaining time with the Mets. But Lastings Milledge high fives fans and it's a problem? I don't get it.

If this wasn't his first major league home run and if it wasn't a game tying blast in extra innings off of the biggest crybaby closer in the world who has beaten the Mets every time he faced them after leaving, then I can see the problem. But forgive me for thinking that a player interacting with fans in a positive light is a good thing. I find it funny that this is brought up, yet nobody is giving the kid credit for not taking a curtain call after the home run even when fans were asking for it. Again: a curtain call which would have taken place immediately after a home run in front of the opposing team vs. high fives done while the offended team is in the dugout and television coverage is in commercial. What's worse? (And don't get me wrong, I loved the curtain calls in 1986...and love them now. But I would have felt more awkward about Milledge taking a curtain call than I felt with what he actually did.)

There are certain unwritten rules of baseball that are there for a reason, they are there to insure respect for the game. But there are certain others that have been around for years which are just archaic. These rules pre-date player strikes and owner lockouts and $10 cups of watered down beer and the abolition of the scheduled single admission doubleheader and the five hour rain delays that fans are made to sit through and the $175 autograph shows and FOX and tiered pricing systems and...you starting to get the point? In an era where professional sports fans get screwed over left and right, Lastings Milledge's actions today probably won the sport of baseball a handful of fans for life. I applaud a player that makes the fans feel like a part of the game and acknowledges their presence rather than put on earplugs to drown them out. I find no problem with that, and players that do have a problem with it should lighten up a hair. And dare I say because I don't know for sure, but I'd be willing to bet money that a lot of the same players that would condemn Lastings' act are the same ones that are rushing to the defense of one Barry Bonds...the same Barry Bonds that probably wouldn't bother to spit on a fan if he was on fire. High fiving fans vs. refusing autographs. Which is worse?

So should Lastings Milledge do this all the time? Probably not. Should he be talked to? Yes he should, and he was. But was what he did really wrong? Well, he did break an unwritten rule. But it's one of those rules that was probably made to be broken.