Seton Hall
This week in baseball (Week of June 16)
Date: June 16, 2019By: Joe Cammarota
One of the big stories this past week is about the “Let the kids play” movement in baseball. The movement is about how some people do not like bat flips and the emotion some of the ballplayers show, specifically the batters.
On Monday, Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Joe Musgrove hit Atlanta Brave Josh Donaldson in the first inning after a pitch from Musgrove grazed the jersey of Donaldson. Donaldson took offence to this and started yelling at Musgrove which resulted in the benches clearing and Donaldson and Musgrove.
Many were puzzled on why there was an ejection, especially because it was not intentional. This led Pirates manager Clint Hurdle to come out and argue with the umpire about the call, which resulted in him getting tossed from the game as well.
This led too many to question the “Let the kids play” movement as it is somewhat one sided. When Pitchers show emotion, they are not protected and tossed, like Musgrove was after he took his hat and glove off when Donaldson was about to charge the mound.
Musgrove was given a harsher punishment than Donaldson was in the scenario because Donaldson was the instigator while Musgrove was just reactionary to the whole situation.
So, is the “Let the kids play” movement good or bad? Well, it is good but needs to be tweaked. The movement is promoted to try and appeal to the younger crowd as baseball is a sport that is losing popularity. The movement center around bat flips and admiring home runs. The MLB championed this when looking at home runs by Derek Dietrich, Manny Machado, and Tim Anderson.
All of these athletes have been poster boys for their home run admiring, but it does anger pitchers, specifically Madison Bumgarner who got irate after Machado admired a home run that he hit of Bumgarner into the water at Oracle Park in San Francisco.
Pitchers feel left out in this and feel that the movement is only “Let the Batters Play” and the movement does not treat them equally. This can be seen with Pirates pitcher Chris Archer: he shows a lot of emotion out on the mound but gets criticized about it often.
How does the MLB fix this though, because many times admiring a home run or a bat flip can lead to the pitcher retaliating by plunking the batter his next time up?
Should the MLB just abandon the movement to avoid more events like this and stick of pitchers, or do they leave it as is and say the pitchers need to grow up? I believe they should keep the movement, as is helps bring in the younger generation to baseball, but let’s also champion pitchers.
When a pitcher get a big strikeout and he shows emotion let’s make a highlight of it, let’s promote it. Many love to see that, when the pitcher gets hyped up the whole stadium does too. Also, let’s not be so quick to throw out pitchers in a fight in the case of Musgrove. Know the moment.
Joe Cammarota can be reached at joseph.cammarota@student.shu.edu.
