It’s old news by now, but it’s worth remembering some of these smaller stories in what figures to be a long season of losing. The other night, the Giants outfielders performed a final out act?… dance?… behavior?… performance? that received a strong response from those empowered to deliver and enforce a “Knock it off.” If you’ve already forgotten news from two days ago:
There’re Drew Gilbert, Harrison Bader, and Jung Hoo Lee smashing their cups together as all bros do in celebration after the final out of a baseball game. Yep. A tradition as old as the game itself. Totally normal stuff, right? WRONG! Obviously!
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When I was in 8th grade, our boys’ basketball team set out to go 12-0 that season and when we got to around 7-0 or 8-0 we were really feeling ourselves. I went to a small Catholic school, and when we celebrated a little too hard after a couple of made shots on the opponents’ court to clinch that 7th or 8th straight win, on the following Monday we were taken into the convent garden and scolded by our principal, Sister Catherine, and the head of the parish himself, Father Lannigan. We were lined up, told that we were to immediately stop all forms of celebration and to play the game “like gentlemen.”
I don’t think we went undefeated that year (maybe 11-1?), but what I do remember is that talking to, in part because of Father Lannigan’s borderline farcical Irish brogue, but also because it felt unfair. It wasn’t formative in that I learned a valuable lesson about sportsmanlike conduct, but that I learned how powerful the spectators’ experience is on a performance. The audience matters more than the performance or the performers because it’s their feedback that delivers the enduring value judgment, either through paying money to watch or being a critic, formally or informally as a fan.
So, if Buster Posey doesn’t like what he’s seeing — even with the easily accessible experience of being a player — then that’s the end of that. If you don’t think it’s Buster who’s trying to prevent this particular memory from being a part of his business, consider this: as Andrew Baggarly reminds us in his newser from last night’s loss (and, if anyone doesn’t follow our recaps with Baggs’s work right after, you’re missing out — he’s been on a real heater with his write-ups during this eventful Dodgers series), Posey is a proud baseball traditionalist:
Although Giants president Buster Posey has publicly stated his disdain for fraternization between opponents, there’s an understanding that Adames is who he is. There should be room for a social butterfly to exist even in an organization that hired manager Tony Vitello to instill the kind of fighting spirit that could antagonize opponents at times.
Like letting Luis Arraez play second base in order to sign him, looking the other way while Willy Adames exchanges hot goss with his fellow millionaires was the cost of acquiring the player. But letting Drew Gilbert bang his teammates in public? It’s too much, and Gilbert is easily sanctioned.
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That’s going to do it for most baseball fans. Most baseball fans recoil at the notion of seeing anything vaguely human on a baseball field. Just baseball, spitting, scratching, high fiving, and butt slapping. Nothing more. The hint of sexuality — especially homosexuality — is the sort of thing that might trigger apoplexy in spectators and shareholders. And like everything meaningful in the world, keeping shareholders happy is all that matters.
Going back to that scolding at the convent, for the rest of the season we were assigned a chaperone. A teacher from another grade would attend all of our games and reported back to Sr. Catherine and Fr. Lannigan. We didn’t run afoul of the fun police the rest of the season, and we probably learned a lesson that we are always going to represent more than ourselves. That name on the jersey isn’t just our team; it’s everyone at our school and in that community. We 8th graders had offended the sensibility of some parents for high fiving and “YEAH”-ing on the court a little too hard in the moment and, okay, I’ll admit, there was one guy who held his hand up after making a three, running backwards a few steps, then turning that hand around and talking to it — so, you know, as a decrepit sports blogger now, I guess I can see a little bit why the decrepit people tasked with educating children and maintaining the school’s reputation might’ve been a little annoyed.
The Giants added a couple of new investors in the offseason and the last thing Buster Posey wants them to see is the players on the payroll acting “weird” or “obscene.” Or maybe he personally doesn’t feel it’s appropriate for Giants players to behave that way on the field — though, I’d hope nobody would dare invoke the “won’t somebody think of the children?!” reaction when most kids aren’t awake to see that celebration. But to add Drew Gilbert and Tony Vitello and a bunch of other big personalities to a team and then ask them to not be themselves just seems like another bad idea by a team that has had a lot of them over the past few years.
Players of a losing team having a little fun after one of their few wins by doing something people could see on TV for 25+ years on The Simpsons or How I Met Your Mother doesn’t really strike me as controversial, even as we live in a culture now fully captured by conservative values, but then again, it (gasp) went viral! So, maybe that had everything to do with it. Forget that baseball players are generally odd ducks and what they find interesting or amusing or exciting is usually far afield from what the average baseball viewer or non-player does — “that ain’t right” is a trump card the outsider gets to play most of the time. If the Giants were winning a lot, perhaps that could’ve Uno reversed the outcome.
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Anyway, here’s a good image from a bad site.
Hopefully, this shameful episode will remind baseball players to refrain from doing anything they find to be fun while in view of the cameras.
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