Unwritten Rules At It Again

Baseball is at it again. Another brawl broke out because some unwritten rules were broken. Let's go through the situation.

Down 14-3 in the 4th inning, Nationals OF Nyjer Morgan gets hit with a pitch and then decides to steal 2nd and 3rd base. A sacrifice fly brings him in and the Nats are now down only 10. In the 6th, Morgan gets thrown behind, charges the mound and gets absolutely clobbered by Marlins 1B Gabby Sanchez. After the game, Wes Helms indicated that the Marlins were mad that Morgan was stealing bases in a 11-run blowout, saying "There's nothing good I can say about someone who doesn't play the game the right way and doesn't respect the integrity of the game. We had to show we weren't going to put up with how he was treating us."

So let me get this straight...if my team is losing by 10 runs in the 4TH (!!) I am to expect them to give up and not score any runs? Is that what you are telling me? It's absolutely ridiculous. Helms wants to talk about respecting the game? How about respecting the fans that pay money to come watch you play? You think they want to watch a game with 4 competitive innings?

It's that simple, right?

Well, unfortunately there is more to the story. Last week Morgan didn't even attempt to avoid Cardinals catcher Bryan Anderson is a collision. The Nats manager sat him for the next two days for being unprofessional and said that he would definitely slide next time. Fast forward to Tuesday. Morgan again collided with a catcher and ended Brett Hayes' season. Had Morgan not done this a week ago, his actions Tuesday night could have been misinterpreted. But seeing that this had happened before, the Marlins got rightfully pissed and decided to throw at him Wednesday night.

That's fine and dandy. I'm ok with it. But when Morgan then stole second and third, the Marlins didn't see it as an attempt to score some runs - they saw Morgan as someone who didn't care; someone who was out of control.

Having read more of the story I think I actually might be siding with Florida after all. It's one thing to disrespect the game by breaking an unwritten rule. It's an entirely different thing to disrespect another team. Morgan appears to have lost it. Their is a pattern. He needed to be clobbered. [note: take a look at the video of the Stan Hansen-like Lariat]