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Poor sportsmanship or smart baseball?


SteveA

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The Toronto announcers are complaining about what they call "poor sportsmanship" on this play, and the Blue Jay players and manager don't seem to happy either. I'm no Yankee fan, but I believe this was just a smart play by A-Rod and I see nothing wrong with it whatsoever:

A-Rod on 1st, Matsui on 2nd, 2 outs. Batter hits extremely high popup to left side. 3rd baseman (McDonald) comes in to field it, shorstop is behind him but backs off. Matsui races around 3rd, A-Rod rounds 2nd and runs, right in the baseline, between the SS & 3Bman. It appears that when he is directly behind the 3rd baseman he says "I got it". The 3rd baseman, thinking it is the SS calling him off, backs off the ball. It falls in for a hit, Matsui scores, and the Yankees go on to get a couple more that inning.

Toronto announcers were pissed, calling it bush league and poor sportsmanship. I see no problem with it....how is it any different than other types of deception such as acting as if a throw is coming in when it isn't, or the hidden ball trick?

As I said, I'm no Yankee lover, but I give A-Rod credit for a smart play and would not complain even if it happened against the Orioles. It's not like he tried to sissy-slap the ball out of the first baseman's glove or something!

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Sure it's a smart play. It's the fault of the 3B for not recognizing that it wasn't his teammate's voice. I've always wondered why more baserunners don't try stuff like this. If they're dumb enough to fall for it, why not try?

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I think it was kind of funny (probably since it didn't happen to the O's). Kids have been trying this for years and I have never seen it work, not even in my backyard. Now, an MLB player pulls it off. Baseball is supposed to be fun. Alex was just fooling around, and it worked.

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The 3B is definitely a moron for letting this ball drop.

I won't call it a "smart play" by ARod, but I won't call it classless either. It was a very silly play that happened to work. I'm sure guys do this all the time, it just happened to work for him. I'd say its a good result for the Yankees, if nothing else. Gotta give him props for that.

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If that's what happened, I think it's pretty lame. I'm not one of those people who hates Rodriguez just because he's a Yankee, but he's done some awful stupid things in his career. It's easy to say "he should recognize his teammates voice" when you aren't in the middle of a stadium filled with thousands of screaming fans. This isn't as bad as the gloveslap in the playoffs against Boston, but it's still pretty bad. Clever? Sure. Hell, I'd even say it's pretty funny. But it's still poor sportsmanship, IMO.

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By the way, this IS considered interference by the rulebook:

INTERFERENCE

(a) Offensive interference is an act by the team at bat which interferes with, obstructs, impedes, hinders or confuses any fielder attempting to make a play. If the umpire declares the batter, batter- runner, or a runner out for interference, all other runners shall return to the last base that was in the judgment of the umpire, legally touched at the time of the interference, unless otherwise provided by these rules.

So yeah, that's why you don't see guys trying this more often.

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By the way, this IS considered interference by the rulebook:

INTERFERENCE

(a) Offensive interference is an act by the team at bat which interferes with, obstructs, impedes, hinders or confuses any fielder attempting to make a play. If the umpire declares the batter, batter- runner, or a runner out for interference, all other runners shall return to the last base that was in the judgment of the umpire, legally touched at the time of the interference, unless otherwise provided by these rules.

So yeah, that's why you don't see guys trying this more often.

I don't see any language like that in the MLB rulebook.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/runner_7.jsp

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http://yankees.lohudblogs.com/

Somebody posted this link in the ARod cheating on his wife thread and it now has an entry about this incident... check out who the 3B was!:eek:

The Blue Jays are not pleased with Alex Rodriguez. They said he yelled, “Mine!” as he passed behind Howie Clark in the ninth inning. Clark backed off the pop-up and it led to the Yankees scoring three runs.

“I’ve never seen it happen, maybe I’m naive but I thought it was a bush-league play. That’s not Yankee pride right there,” Toronto manager John Gibbons said.

Clark said that in all his time in baseball, he had never experience such a thing.

Rodriguez said he yelled, “Ha!” because, “I was excited running around third base. I don’t know what my intention was.”

Why he would be excited running around third base as the final out was going to be made is uncertain.

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I don't see any language like that in the MLB rulebook.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/runner_7.jsp

In my opinion, yelling "Mine!" is an attempt to hinder a fielder and is therefore interference. But I hate A-Rod, so I'm biased. MLB needs to make a ruling on this.

I think it's poor sportsmanship. There are many things you can do to win a game, but that doesn't mean you should actually do them. And can you imagine if this kind of stuff becomes acceptable? It will be absolute chaos on every fly ball. Fielders won't be able to trust "I got it!" and everyone will start running into each other and getting hurt. That in and of itself is enough for me to give this a thumbs-down.

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