What’s wrong with bowing to the fans after hitting a home run? Nothing, so far as I can see. But pitcher Todd Stottlemyre of the Arizona Diamondbacks had a beef last week when Sammy Sosa clubbed him for a pair of home runs.
After crossing the plate after each home run, Sosa bowed from the waist, Japanese style, in recognition of the cheers. It was a very nice gesture that Sosa had picked up during an off-season tour in Japan.
“The fans seemed to like it,” conceded Arizona pitching coach Mark Connor. “But `Stott’ didn’t.”
Stottlemyre insisted Sosa was trying to show him up. Sosa expressed surprise and said it had not been done to embarrass Stottlemyre but was a respectful response to the cheering fans.
After the game, following a meeting with manager Jim Riggleman, Sosa announced it wouldn’t happen again. Nobody had accused him of a violation, but the inference was that what he had done was an invitation to retaliation.
And so, in major-league baseball, according to the new and unspoken rule, there can no longer be an expression of joy during a moment of triumph.
If so, Commissioner Bud Selig should go back into the fog of time and lift the statute of limitations.
Bobby Thomson could be penalized for circling the bases gleefully when his legendary 1951 home run off Ralph Branca lifted the New York Giants to a pennant. Ted Williams could be fined similarly for the uncommon display of exhilaration that accompanied his heroic 1941 All-Star Game home run.
More than that, Selig should bring to justice the hundreds, perhaps thousands of sluggers who paused in delight between bases to wave to their wives and sweethearts: “Hi, honey, that home run was for you!”
The ultimate baseball put-down, Babe Ruth’s supposed “called-shot” home run in the ’32 World Series against the Cubs, is among the most memorable moments in the game’s history. Ruth was intent on embarrassing the Cubs players who had refused to vote Mark Koenig, Ruth’s former Yankees teammate, a full World Series share.
But the called shot was a myth, a fantasy. After the count against him had grown to two strikes, Ruth pointed a finger toward the Cubs’ dugout, indicating he had one strike left. Only one of the more than 100 reporters on the scene mentioned this in his report.
Whatever, Ruth homered into the center-field bleachers. Pitcher Charlie Root and almost all of his teammates insisted the Babe had pointed toward the dugout, “not to center field.”
“If he was predicting a home run,” Root said later, “I would have knocked down the big baboon.”
Ford Frick, who was then among Ruth’s ghost writers, said a year or two later he asked the Babe if he had pointed toward center field.
“It’s in the papers, isn’t it?” the Babe replied.
Obviously, those were softer times.
We constantly are being told sports should be fun for players and fans alike. This is true. Andre Dawson was allowed to salaam to the right-field spectators but the Wrigley Field fans won’t see Sammy Sosa curtsy.
Too bad.
