All in the Game, Yo

Kuroda threw at Victorino because of baseball's unwritten rules.


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Published: Oct 15, 2008

Sunday night, in the third inning of Game 3 of the National League Championship Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Japanese-born Dodgers starting pitcher Hideki Kuroda threw a baseball toward the head of Hawaiian-born Phillies centerfielder Shane Victorino. Victorino ducked, and the ball flew past the Dodgers' Canadian catcher Russell Martin, who had earlier taken a pitch in the knee from local product Jamie Moyer. Victorino stood up, squared his shoulders, pointed adamantly to his head and then his side, and barked at Kuroda. He wasn't upset that someone had hurled a potentially lethal object at him — "Someone was bound to get hit on our team," Victorino acknowledged after the game. "The situation called for it" — but the ball had been aimed at his head, a violation of what Victorino believed to be one of baseball's unwritten rules. Several minutes later, both benches cleared, and a round of the age-old schoolboy "hold me back!" routine ensued.

After the game, Martin snarkily declared that Kuroda's pitch "wasn't at [Victorino's] head, it was over his head," an excuse akin to the old Simpsons' gag of Sideshow Bob persuading a parole board to let him go because, "Attempted murder, now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry?" In any case, Major League Baseball seemed to agree, as no one from either team was ejected or suspended. Fines were levied, but were minimal. Dodgers manager Joe Torre's take seemed to become the party line on the incident: "We know the game polices itself."

How can that be? What enables players to "police" the field by throwing at each other and brawling?

The answer, it seems, are baseball's Unwritten Rules. Known to players of every uniform and nationality, plus umpires and Major League Baseball itself, the Unwritten Rules are copious — you might be surprised at the sheer amount of unofficial protocol in a game in which chewing tobacco and adjusting oneself mid-inning are commonly accepted. You should never bunt to break up a no-hitter, for instance; you don't steal bases when you're up six or more runs. And you never hit the opposing team's best player with a pitch.

Violating any of these rules will get you a fastball up-and-in.

That's why Victorino knew he'd be thrown at. The Phillies' pitchers had been throwing in on the Dodgers all series — with an emphasis on Martin and slugger Manny Ramirez — and someone on the Phillies had it coming. The center fielder reacted not because he'd been thrown at, but because he didn't appreciate Kuroda throwing toward his head.

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Knowing that you shouldn't steal bases when up six runs may be the sports equivalent of, say, knowing which fork to use for salad. But the consequences are more dire: Fastballs hurt. It's hard to imagine the NFL accepting a late hit on a quarterback or an NBA player getting undercut as "the game policing itself" — especially in the playoffs.

The reality is that it is dangerous — both teams left Sunday's game unscathed, save a few welts, but things easily could have been worse had Kuroda's 94 mile-per-hour fastball been a bit lower — but it's baseball. Full of internal rules and rituals, baseball is a game steeped in tradition. While football tinkers with minor rules every offseason, and basketball changes the dimensions of its court each time a bigger, faster generation comes up, baseball changes slowly and reluctantly. It would be hard to think of an American institution based more strongly on the accumulation of its own past culture. And so when the Phillies threw at the Dodgers, the Dodgers threw at Shane. It didn't matter whether there was a better way to deal with the situation. It was baseball's way.

Asked about the incident after the game, Phillies' first base coach Davey Lopes, who hours earlier seemed ready to throw his 63-year-old fists at Dodger coach Mariano Duncan, told a group of reporters, "There's nothing to talk about. Did anything happen? I didn't see anything happen. Nothing happened." Of course, something did happen. What Lopes meant was that, whatever happened, no one besides the baseball players needed to worry about it.

E. James Beale is blogging the postseason at citypaper.net/sports. He'll report from the stadium during Phillies home games.