“We play a game. It’s fun. That is all.”
Michael Kopech tweeted that as the debate over old-school vs. new-school got dragged back into the fore by the actions of his teammate. The injured pitcher was thousands of miles from the epicenter of the chain of events that thrust Tim Anderson into the national spotlight. But, thanks to social media, he’s been standing right beside Anderson all along.
Bat flips make for fun highlights and good marketing campaigns, but there’s a certain segment of players, fans and other baseball people that think they’re a display of arrogance, inappropriate behavior and a violation of unwritten but well-established rules that have developed in the game’s century and a half of existence.