Tank McNamara by Bill Hinds for June 01, 2021

Ridiculous unwritten rule & totally out of date manager.If the pitcher serves you up a slow fat pitch, which is what happened, then hit it out of the park, no matter what!

When the opponent agrees not to score enough runs to win a game, then it would make sense for the team at bat not to score more runs.

Which makes you wonder why the White Sox hired a manager LaRussa’s age to begin with!

I think Tank would be the host and announcer for a Cleats animated series.

Best one i heard of was, after a pitcher has given up two consecutive homeruns the third batter should not swing at the pitches he sees. Unwritten rule.

Old enough to have played during an earlier age.

I read a story a while back sort of similar to this but with very different results. A team had gone through all of the available pitching staff so they called in a position player who hadn’t pitched since high school. However, the opposing team could not handle it when his fast ball came screaming in at 76 MPH. Yeah, it was probably about as bad as facing a knuckleballer but without the dips and dives.

You know what else was an “unwritten” rule from baseball? Don’t take PEDs. See how much that one was enforced?

For those of you who only read the headline, ignoring the coach’s TAKE SIGN on a 3-0 pitch in a massacre is a no-no.

I’ve been a die-hard White Sox fan for over 70 years. There was a time when this “unwritten rule” was appropriate. Not so in today’s game with these huge salaries. Additionally, as someone else said Mercedes toiled in different leagues trying to get to the majors. He’s no kid at 28 years old and just did make the team out of spring camp. I’d guess, and don’t know for certain, he’s making the league minimum. Every hit, every home run could be worth his career, and more salary. I think LaRussa was wrong in his opinion and handled the incident poorly, risking losing the team’s confidence in him.

LaRussa’s first managerial job was with the White Sox, and I liked him then. I thought that hiring him for this season was a bad move. He’s too old to understand today’s ballplayers. In his managerial prime LaRussa managed Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco and others who used banned substances. Those were written rules. LaRussa may well be out of touch with reality altogether.

Don’t forget though, Tony’s a “Genius” per George Will in Men at Work. Actually what Tony is is a chronic red ass, who’s been doing this “unwritten rule” nonsense for ages. The PED issues mentioned above, are also part of his “genius.”

As someone who knows next to nothing about the majors, I’m very surprised that non-pitchers ever pitch in games. Aren’t the benches deep? And isn’t there a greater danger of hitting a batter with a pitch?

The unwritten rules of baseball would fill a book if they were ever written down.

Call me old school, but this old catcher would have called for one in his ear hole the next time he came up. Completely bush move and all that swing was doing was showing up the opponent. No better than stealing in the same situation or for those of you that don’t know the game, either throwing a bomb up by 21 with less than a minute to go, putting up a three at the buzzer up by twenty, or taking a shot at an empty net with ten seconds left and up by two.