All of baseball’s unwritten rules are stupid, but there’s something especially irritating about the ones that tell you not to try your hardest when the game is out of reach. In a sport where (via the salary arbitration system) players are paid based on their statistics, it’s wrong to ask them to take their foot off the gas when the outcome is no longer in doubt.
One such rule dictates that you shouldn’t swing at a 3–0 pitch when your team is up big late in the game. And you definitely shouldn’t swing on 3–0 when a position player is pitching.