Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - Alex Rodriguez and the “Code of Honor”

In L.A. Confidential, Captain Dudley Smith tells Sergeant Jack Vincennes, “I doubt you’ve ever taken a stupid breath.” Most of the time, Alex Rodriguez is like Vincennes, if far less interesting. A perfect corporate ballplayer, seemingly incapable of an extemporaneous word, definitely incapable of adding excitement to the fine array of electronics sold by Radio Shack.

But on occasion, Rodriguez takes a stupid breath. In 2004, Rodriguez offered his infamous “[me] and 24 kids” remark about the Rangers’ perpetual losing efforts. His comments were startlingly uncharacteristic and factually ignorant, as Texas had signed several other big-name, big dollar free agents during his three-year tenure. Alas, almost all of them were terrible, injury prone, or both.

Rodriguez took Breath Number Two yesterday. On the last day of the regular season, Texas gave Alfonso Soriano his first day off since mid-July. Buck Showalter then pulled Michael Young, Mark Teixeira and Hank Blalock in the third inning after all three reached base. The Rangers played the rest of the game with Adrian Gonzalez at first, Esteban German at second, Mark DeRosa at short and Marshall McDougall at third. Texas entered the fourth inning leading 4-1, but Los Angeles immediately tied the game on a Juan Rivera three-run homer and scored singletons in the sixth, seventh and eighth. Meanwhile, Texas completed the last six innings with two singles and no walks. Final score: LA 7, Texas 4.

As a result, LA won home-field advantage over Rodriguez’s Yankees, who had lost 10-1 to Boston hours earlier. Informed of the Rangers’ roster shenanigans, Rodriguez provided these words of wisdom: "I just think there's a code of honor when so much is on the line. You hope people do the right thing but you can't control what people do."

Ah, sweet obliviousness. Let’s explore how the Yankees themselves responded to this “code of honor” thingy with so much on the line.

New York chose Jaret Wright to start the last game of the season against Boston’s Curt Schilling. Wright brought a 5.97 ERA into the game, and opposing batters were hitting .335 against him. In his previous start, Wright allowed seven runs (three earned) on six hits in just one inning. Before that, he allowed four runs (three earned) on five hits in 2.1 innings. He has a career ERA of 5.17 in nine years of play. When Wright couldn’t get through the fourth inning, New York replaced him with Scott Proctor, who had a 5.52 ERA on the season (5.81 career) and had allowed a homer every six innings. He’d given up eleven runs in twelve innings in September. Proctor promptly surrendered a three-run bomb to Manny Ramirez. Boston led 6-0 after four and never looked back.

Watching the entertainment from the bench was a rested Mike Mussina, whom the Yankees were saving for the playoffs. Mussina has 224 career wins and career ERA of 3.64. He’s been rather average this season and missed a couple of weeks with a tender elbow, but no sentient creature would chose Wright over Mussina when “so much is on the line.”

Aggrieved parties only speak of “unwritten rules” and “codes of honor” when the results go against them. Ben Davis’s bunt to break up a Curt Schilling no hitter a few years ago provides another example of a code violation. If Hernandez doesn’t reach base, or if Texas holds on to win, nobody says a word or even remembers the violation the next day. Furthermore, accusations of rule-breaking don't exist when the act might help instead of harm. Rodriguez conspicuously neglected to mention that Los Angeles pulled Saturday starter Jarrod Washburn after only two innings and rested Vlad Guerrero on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

I eagerly await Alex Rodriguez’s next off-the-cuff remarks, which will take place during the All-Star Break in 2007.

Posted by Lucas on Tuesday, October 04 2005 @ 06:19 AM EDT.

Alex Rodriguez and the “Code of Honor” | 11 comments | Create New Account

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DepecheJay - Tuesday, October 04 2005 @ 10:21 AM EDT (#129584) #

There's a sports talk radio show here in NYC called Mike and The Mad Dog. They spoke about this very subject yesterday, but they focused their verbal attacks on Yankee broadcasters John Sterling, Suzen Waldman, Michael Kay, and Chris Singleton. I had not known about the A-Rod quote until reading this thread, but Mike Francessa was absolutly ripping Sterling a new one for some of the comments he was making. Sterling said the same thing, that it was "dispicable" and against the integrity of the game to not have any starters in. What's funny was, the Yankees simultaneously were doing the same exact thing in Boston. Some of the guy's that got at-bats on Sunday's game... pathetic.

Singleton, whom I usually like, was also catching wrath from these two. He was one of the most vocal about the code of the game... such crap.

It's nothing new to me living here in New York City because I've known that Yankee announcers, fans, etc. are just filled with people who hold the Yankees to this standard that the new aged Yankees (post championship era) fail to even meet. These are the same type of people (Kay, Sterling, etc.) that casually degrade the Jays and GM JP Ricciardi for their baseball philosophy. (Moneyball) These people have no standards, they have no class, and A-Rod... pfffft... A-Rod is the softest baseball superstar in the history of the game. You've got the Bronson Arroyo slapping of the ball incident, you've got all his manerisms that just scream "HOT DOG!" Quite frankly, I would LOVE IT if Big Papi walked away with the hardware for this season

Lefty - Tuesday, October 04 2005 @ 10:22 AM EDT (#129585) #

Looking back at the boxscore, it was actually Juan Rivera that hit the threee run bomb. Vlady was 1 for3 with a run scored. Not that it matters to your central point.

Lucas - Tuesday, October 04 2005 @ 10:32 AM EDT (#129587) #

So it was. I should know better, since I was watching the game. Time to make a correction.

Jordan - Tuesday, October 04 2005 @ 10:47 AM EDT (#129588) #

I wonder how much of this springs from lingering ill will between Buck Showalter and the Yankees?

I think there's an identifiable line to be drawn in these sitautions. If you're out of the race, but you're playing a team that's fighting for the playoffs, you bring out your big guns. For example, in their series at the Bronx and Fenway, the Jays played their A lineup -- no Quiroz, no Griffin, not much Gross -- and they played every inning like it was their last.

If, however, you've clinched a playoff spot and you're only a few days away from the post-season, I think you're entitled to rest your starters to a greater or lesser extent. This is what the White Sox did in their series against Cleveland, and nobody really minded that.

I agree that the Yankees have little ground to complain, considering their approach to their own Sunday game, and I dislike A-Rod's whines as much as anyone. But I also think the Rangers were wrong: they were going home for the winter after this game, and home-field advantage (not a small matter) was on the line. I don't see any good reason why Showalter should have pulled his starters so soon. I think he had an obligation to take the game as seriously as if his own team's playoff position were at stake, and I don't think he did.

Just because the Yankees aren't in a position to complain doesn't mean their complaint isn't valid. In this case, I think it was.

Four Seamer - Tuesday, October 04 2005 @ 11:03 AM EDT (#129589) #

Just because the Yankees aren't in a position to complain doesn't mean their complaint isn't valid. In this case, I think it was.

Well, the Yankees hardly did anything to mitigate their damages, given that they weren't exactly playing to win on Sunday. All the Bombers had to do to gain home field advantage was win; when they chose not to give it the old college try, they signalled to the world that home field wasn't very important. I don't know why Showalter and the Rangers should be expected to take it more seriously than the Yankees themselves.

Jordan - Tuesday, October 04 2005 @ 11:35 AM EDT (#129592) #

I see two possibilities. One is that Showalter assumed the Yankees were tanking it in Fenway and pulled his starters accordingly. The other is that he wasn't aware of it at all and pulled his starters anyway. I think we'd all agree that if it was the second scenario, he was in the wrong.

If it's the former scenario, then there are two things worth noting. The first is that Showalter pulled his starters in the bottom of the third (Central Time) while building a 4-1 lead. I'll assume, for convenience sake, that this would have been around the same time as the Red Sox were taking a 6-0 lead in the 4th inning against Wright and Proctor (Eastern Time). But as far as Showalter knew, the Yankees were simply down at that point, not out -- Torre didn't pull his starters until the top of the 6th, which would certainly have been after Showalter benched his guys.

Even if we assume that Showalter had someone in the clubhouse watching the Yankees game and relaying every player move to him -- something I've not heard was done -- then that guy in the clubhouse knew that Jeter, Rodriguez et al were still in the lineup at that point, and as far as anyone knew, the Yankees still intended to try and win this game (remember, starting Wright and resting Mussina could be defended as a gamble for a team preparing for the playoffs -- if the Yankees really were tanking it from the start, Jeter and A-Rod would certainly have been gone after their first plate appearances). Unless corrected by facts otherwise, I think it's quite likely that Showalter pulled his starters out of the game before Torre pulled his, and that would reflect poorly on Showalter.

The second thing is that regardless of who knew what or assumed what was going on in the other guy's ballpark Sunday afternoon, I think the Rangers had a larger obligation to make an effort at winning the game -- if not for the larger sense of baseball's integrity and best interests (which is at least arguable), then certainly for his own team's pride and professionalism. Even if the Yankees seemingly didn't care about getting home-field advantage, the Angels still did, and I do think the Rangers had an obligation to the Angels, and to the upcoming playoffs, to play their best in that situation.

If Showalter did in fact take his cue from what the Yankees did, then the best that can be said for him is that he followed Torre's lead in deciding that this game, and home-field advantage, wasn't worth taking seriously. And if we criticize Torre -- whose starters stayed in the game two innings longer than Showalter's did -- then I don't see how Buck gets away with any less blame.

Jordan - Tuesday, October 04 2005 @ 11:43 AM EDT (#129595) #

Also worth noting -- the Angels played their best guys the whole way, right to the end of the game. If Showalter was going to take his cue from anyone about the importance of this match, it should've been Mike Scioscia, not Joe Torre. If Scioscia had begun pulling his starters, only then would it have been permissible for Showalter to do the same.

Whether or not the Yankees took Sunday's game seriously is not that relevant -- what matters is whether the Angels, the team Texas was playing, took it seriously, and they most certainly did. That's the standard Showalter should be held to.

James W - Tuesday, October 04 2005 @ 11:44 AM EDT (#129596) #

Showalter said his reason for pulling his players was to give them the ovation he felt they deserved from the crowd. I don't think he was overly concerned with what was going on in New York. The Yankees should have been more concerned with themselves than what the Rangers were doing; all they had to do was win. And doesn't them pulling their players also impact Cleveland, who could have tied for the wild card with a win and a New York win? Or did Torre wait until Cleveland had lost to pull his starters?

Four Seamer - Tuesday, October 04 2005 @ 12:02 PM EDT (#129599) #

And if we criticize Torre -- whose starters stayed in the game two innings longer than Showalter's did -- then I don't see how Buck gets away with any less blame.

Except that the consequences of the Rangers' "tanking" accrued only to the Angels and Yankees. By mailing it in against the Red Sox, Torre was effectively consigning the Indians to their fate as wild-card runner up (not that the Indians did themselves any favours with their last week swan dive, so reminiscent of a certain hometown team in 1987). On those grounds, I think Torre is deserving of more criticism.

That is, if I was in the mood to criticize at all. I concede the basic point - that the integrity of the game demands that the teams make their best effort at all times whenever playoff implications are raised. But as Craig B observed recently in another thread, playing hard at all times is hardly the rule in baseball. At the end of the day, the Yankees held their own fate in their own hands, and the available evidence pretty clearly suggests that they were at best indifferent to the outcome. And since the Clevelands couldn't win a single game at home against a team that wasn't playing its full complement of regulars, I don't see where their grievance lies.

Showalter's own indifference to the outcome of the game is disappointing, that I'm prepared to grant. But I simply can't get exercised about him taking out his regulars when the team whose interests he supposedly impugned made so little effort on its own behalf.

Of course, all of this assumes that Showalter was aware that his game had implications for home-field advantage in the playoffs. It's perfectly plausible that Showalter wasn't cognizant of the fact that the Yanks and Angels would be meeting in the first round, let alone still fighting it our for home-field advantage.

Jordan - Tuesday, October 04 2005 @ 12:23 PM EDT (#129601) #

It's like I'm back in moot court. :-) Reasonable points -- it seems fair to say that there's plenty of blame to go around, but that the Yankees need not point any fingers.

Mike Green - Wednesday, October 05 2005 @ 10:46 AM EDT (#129658) #

Karate chops to the ball? Codes of Honour? I am waiting for the All-World Series newspaper headline "Crouching Tigers defeat Hidden Dragons".

It amazes me that Torre did not know on Saturday that his team would clinch if the Indians lost. But, he apparently did not. So, it would not be a shocker if Showalter did not appreciate the significance of his Sunday's game.

Assuming he did know, I agree with Jordan that he did the wrong thing. A code of honour is probably not the best way to describe the principle. How about an "implicit agreement"? Teams that are out of the playoff race try to win against teams that are in the midst of one, on the understanding that other teams in other seasons will do the same for their benefit.

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