MLB: bat flips, most disrespectful part of the game today

When did society’s love affair with bat flips become so prevalent, and why is this unwritten MLB rule continuously allowed to be broken.

Bat flips in MLB have made their way back into the spotlight. Not since Jose Bautista‘s 2015 bat flip in the American League Division Series have I seen such egregious video of blatant disrespect.

Now we have dueling bat flippers in Oakland Athletics minor leaguer Noah Vaughan and his wife.

I get it, it’s a quarantined minor league baseball player and his wife having some fun out in the street. The problem is, this type of behavior carries over to the playing field where it has no business being.

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Essentially a batter who hits a home run and flips his bat is doing to the pitcher what Roberto Alomar used to do to umpires. This is the definition of showing a pitcher up, is it not? And as a society we have glamorized it to the point it is done way too often. Not only is it disrespectful to the pitcher, but the act is also desecrating to the game itself.

The bat flips have evolved to the carrying of the bat all the way to first base. First Alex Bregman pulled the stunt (on a pitch which was allegedly tipped by Washington Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg) and then Juan Soto does the same because “it looked like fun.” All of this on the game’s biggest stage, Game 6 of the World Series.

I’ve never seen a list of baseball’s unwritten rules, though surely this is within the first few pages. You do not show up another player. If you do show up another player, the opposing pitcher has every right to aim for your midsection the next time you step in the batter’s box. It’s almost as if this has stopped, and pitchers are allowing hitters to get away with such nonsense.

Joey Bats got what was coming to him when Roughned Odor landed a right jab in a game the following year. This may have been because Bautista came in hard trying to break up a double play and not in retaliation after his bat flip heard around the world.

I’m not against players expressing their joy during a game. Hitting a home run in a key situation deserves the right to express fun. What’s fun about tossing a bat? Run around the bases yelling and screaming and celebrate with your teammates at home plate and in the dugout.

Maybe it’s just me, I just don’t get why the bat flip has become commonplace in MLB. Noah Vaughan hit seven home runs in four hundred-plus plate appearances last year, yet he is the face of the shutdown-bat-flip for some reason.