A while back I wrote a piece about the Unwritten Rules for visiting a Big League Clubhouse and semi-sorta promised to write about the Unwritten Rules for a Baseball Field Visit and while I don’t keep all my promises (I promised myself to lose 20 pounds before my high school reunion this summer and the way things are going, that’s going to require a chainsaw and a peg leg) I can actually keep this promise, so buckle up.
BTW: This is not the first time I’ve written about this and I often had philosophical disagreements with the Kansas City Star (the worst one involved me thinking I should continue to work there), but I also thought it was OK to write about a topic more than once and when I was asked what was new about a subject I wanted to revisit, I said:
“The audience.”
Every year you get a new bunch of fans and I thought why keep them in the dark about the stolen base and how a stopwatch determines when you attempt to steal because you wrote about that three years ago?
A brilliant argument that had just as much effect as a foot-high wave when it hits the Rock of Gibraltar and while I don’t know if waves actually hit the Rock of Gibraltar, it’s a pretty good metaphor so let’s leave it right there and move on to the stuff you shouldn’t do if you ever get to go out on a Big League baseball field.
Do not walk on the grass
Just like the chairs in the clubhouse that are meant for the players and not you, the grass is only supposed to be walked on by players and coaches and you should stay on the warning track because if the grass is going to get beat up, players and coaches should be the ones to do it.
They have to walk on the grass; you don’t.
If you know anything about grass (insert marijuana joke here) you know it doesn’t take all that much to wear it out and Alex Gordon, who was just a little bit OCD when it came to baseball (he chewed three pieces of the same kind of gum every game) decided he had to stand in the exact same spot every time he was on deck and if you looked down from the upper deck you could see two white footprints where Alex stood and killed the grass and occasionally the grounds crew would cut that chunk out and replace it with fresh sod.
Now here’s one you probably never thought of because I know I didn’t:
Late in the year you can tell how a team is doing by looking at the grass from the upper deck because if the team is scuffling there will be a deep path worn from home plate to the mound and the mound to the home dugout because when you’re losing, you’ll be going to the mound a lot to discuss why the other team just hit three line drives in a row and how to prevent a fourth one.
Either that or changing pitchers.
(BTW: Three line drives in a row are generally speaking not a coincidence and a sign you might want to get a new pitcher; a rule of thumb that might have changed because they came up with it when managers actually watched games and reacted to what they saw happening on the field instead of following the recommendations of an intern in the analytics department.)
The grass in a Big League Ballpark is like the grass on a golf course green and I once had a grounds keeper tell me that when there’s a brawl, he wished the ballplayers would do their fighting on the dirt and not tear up the grass he worked so hard to make perfect.
So stay off the grass (assuming you have one, insert second marijuana joke here).
Do not approach the batting cage
During batting practice it looks like the players are having a lot of fun, but if you pay attention they have a set number of swings allowed and when one batter finishes his swings he jumps out of the cage, as quick as he can and another batter jumps in, as quick as he can because batting practice time is limited and everybody needs to get their work in and the most important word in this sentence is “work.”
The players are always working on something and need to focus on that and not be distracted by you asking what kind of bat they use or you telling them about that time you hit a home run in T-ball.
Do not stand behind first base
During batting practice balls are flying all over the place: the hitter’s sending the ball toward the field and a coach next to the batting cage is probably hitting fungos to the infield every time the hitter sends the ball to the outfield and then those infielders throw the ball to first base and if you’re standing behind it, you’re in the field of fire.
I’ve seen local TV crews who were unfamiliar with how things work, try to set up behind first base because it’s a space that seems empty which is kinda like setting up your camera on an I-70 off-ramp; it also seems empty, but can get busy in a hurry.
Also…
Players don’t mind sending a little wake-up call your way and might overthrow first base semi-accidentally.
I’ve also seen players intentionally throw a ball in the vicinity of a hot female because then they can run over and say how sorry they are and sign a ball for them which is a clever way to meet women that’s limited to ballplayers because if you walk into a bar and rifle a baseball off some hot girl’s forehead, my guess is she’s probably not going home with you.
But feel free to try it and let the rest of us know how it worked out for you.
Do not go beyond first or third base
Hit baseballs can travel at more than 100 miles an hour and even if you’re on the warning track, if you go beyond first or third base you’re now in foul ball territory and Jason Kendall once told me if he ever saw reporters too far down the line during batting practice, he’d try to send a line drive in their direction.
I asked Jason if he ever hit anybody and he said no, but he scared the hell out of some people.
Do not turn your back on the field
Depending on the workout, there will be protective screens set up on the infield and there will always be an L-screen in front of the batting practice pitcher (called that because it’s shaped like an “L”) and when a batter really smokes a baseball it can hit the metal edge of a protective screen and suddenly the ball is screaming off in a totally new direction and it might be into a crowd and if you’re out there long enough you can’t help but notice that when a manager or front office official gives an interview they’ll make sure to face the field because they don’t want to get hit with a baseball and don’t seem to mind it all that much if some reporter or camera man takes a baseball in the back of the head.
To be fair, players are actually horrified when they unintentionally hurt somebody with a foul ball – especially if it’s a kid – and wish fans would put their damn cell phones down and pay attention to the game and pretty much everybody thinks it’s a good idea that they extended the netting to protect more fans who can’t go 30 seconds without checking out social media.
But that attitude is flexible and one time Mike Moustakas made a throw from third base, unintentionally hit the frame of a screen, the ball shot into the dugout, took a soft drink off the dugout rail and missed me by about 2 inches. Moose was horrified and ran over to make sure everybody was OK until he found out I was the one that he almost hit and then he laughed his ass off.
So innocent fans are off limits; reporters they know are fair game.
(These Unwritten Rules get complicated.)
Do not touch their stuff
Players will leave bats and gloves in the dugout and I’ve seen field visitors pick up a bat and give it a few swings which really pisses players off because it’s their stuff not yours and if you went to the bathroom at work and when you came back some complete stranger was sitting at your desk typing on your computer because he “just wanted to try it out” you’d be pissed off too.
(I’d say he or she, but I’ve never seen a woman pick up a bat or a glove and I think maybe that’s because women have more sense and men want to seem Manly and the Master of All Situations, but you’re not going to seem all that Manly if a professional athlete decides to put a foot up your ass.)
And never touch a player’s glove.
Even if he hands it to you and lets you hold it, do not put your hand inside because players are really superstitious and if your hand was inside a player’s glove and he makes an error that night, clearly your un-athletic cooties have ruined that baseball glove.
Players often have three gloves working: the “gamer” (used in games), the future “gamer” (used during practice to break it in) and the old “gamer” (used when the current “gamer” breaks down during a game) and you can screw up the entire process by touching any of those gloves so don’t do it.
Plus…
Jason Kendall once told me he would smear his batting practice bat with pine tar just in case somebody picked it up because that way they’d spend the rest of the game trying to get that sticky shit off their hands. It was a little “fuck you” for people who couldn’t keep that hands off other people’s stuff.
Do not use the restroom just outside the dugout
Every dugout has a restroom nearby and they’re meant for the players not you, which didn’t stop me from using the one by the Royals dugout when nobody was around because the closest public restroom was about a hundred yards away.
But the Royals dugout restroom had a broken lock so I was standing there (sitting there would have been way worse) using the restroom when Royals manager Ned Yost walked in to use it himself and asked:
“Is this a public restroom?”
To which I replied:
“It is now.”
Which is just the kind of smartass response you should not attempt unless you’ve been around a while and everybody is at least semi-used to tolerating your bullshit.
Bottom line: like pretty much everything else, the restroom is meant for players and they shouldn’t have to wait for you to finish so they can use it and while I’m at it, you also shouldn’t drink from the dugout water cooler because that’s for the players as well and I once saw a player try to get some water from an empty water cooler and he said:
“Hey, I know we lost some games lately, but this is fuckin’ ridiculous.”
Do not ask for a player’s autograph right before he takes batting practice
This is not a hard-and-fast rule and some players will sign before they hit, but be aware players are on a schedule even if you don’t understand what that schedule is.
Players are assigned to a hitting group and when one group is hitting, another group is getting ready to hit and another group is shagging balls in the outfield. Everything is scheduled for maximum efficiency so if you ask a player for his autograph right before it’s his time to hit, don’t be surprised if he says he’ll catch you later.
Wait until after he hits and ask for an autograph as he leaves the field and your chances of getting him to sign are much better.
But sometimes a hitter wants more swings in the indoor batting cage or needs to watch video and a player’s work always needs to come before signing autographs because if players don’t put the work in, nobody’s going to want their autograph.
Here’s an interesting thing about hitting groups: I had a coach tell me you don’t want to mix the singles hitters with the power hitters because then the singles hitters will try to emulate what the Big Boppers are doing and mess up their swings and it never works the other way around. A 30-home run hitter doesn’t watch a singles hitter and decide to work on hitting the ball to the opposite field.
Turns out you can screw up a game by doing a lousy job organizing batting practice.
Do not ask strangers for a ball
On numerous occasions I had some kid ask me for a ball and I’d always say it’s not my ball to give away which was 100 percent true, plus teams barely tolerate most reporters and I’m pretty sure you’d wear that tolerance all the way out if you started giving away a team’s equipment.
I’ve also had kids ask me for bats and $300 baseball gloves which made me wonder where an 11-year-old got the balls to ask something like that, but people tend to lose their damn minds around celebrities.
I once saw a couple of parents and their teenage daughter (who was dressed like a 14-year-old hooker) have a conference about which player she should approach next to ask for a signed baseball, which made me wonder what lesson her parents were teaching her about how to get what she wanted.
If a player is ever rude to you, it just might be because the Assholes of the World got there first and wore him out with overly-greedy requests.
It’s common sense which as we all know, isn’t all that common
Just like visiting a clubhouse, when you visit a field act like you’re in somebody else’s home and before you do something ask if it’s OK and if the answer is yes, remember to say thank you.
And now I have to go buy a chainsaw.
It's great fun to deal with the groundskeeper. As a commercial photographer, I was tasked several times with photographing corporate brass and other local celebrities at Kauffman Stadium. My favorite time was not long after Trevor Vance took over as Senior Director of Groundskeeping from Toma. We came up out of the visitors' dugout and as we stepped out onto the field, Vance told me, "Stay off the grass." That was going to make photographing the stuff-suited poobah on the pitcher's mound pretty tough, so I pleaded my case and Vance told me to make it quick. We did. Vance can put the fear in you. (I had easier conversations with Toma, who, post retirement, used to walk the outer road at the Sports Complex for exercise. I walked there too, but Toma walked counter-clockwise, while I went the other way.)
“… when managers actually watched games and reacted to what they saw happening on the field instead of following the recommendations of an intern in the analytics department.)”
I’d like to see a 7 game series between the two managing philosophies, for want of a better term.
Anyway, more good stuff I wish I’d have the chance to use. Thanks.