Appeal Repeal

Were you ever suspended from school when you were younger? A couple of days off, no teachers telling you what to do, but here was the thing: you had to catch up on all of the work you missed. Simply put, the punishment usually fit the crime. You were rarely better off.
Then there’s Major League Baseball, where the crimes don’t matter and the suspensions are nonsense. Other than its strict stance against players who get busted for using performance enhancers, the suspension/appeal process within MLB is a bad joke.


This season alone has given us numerous examples of just how pathetic the organization is when confronted with unacceptable behavior.


 Milwaukee Brewers center fielder Carlos Gomez was suspended three games for his involvement in an altercation with the Pittsburgh Pirates. While the particulars are not important, the way MLB handled it was atrocious.
After being handed his suspension, Gomez appealed—as most players do. His appeal lasted about one month until a back injury forced him out of the lineup. So what did he decide to do? Suddenly drop his appeal and start serving his suspension. Imagine that.
First, it shouldn’t take a month to schedule a meeting for an appeal. Second, this process allows a player to basically think, “Well crap, I'm injured; I might as well serve the suspension now.”
If you’re going to suspend a player, here are a couple of suggestions:

• Give the player the option of appealing, of course, but schedule a meeting within the week.
• Avoid cop outs, such as allowing the player to serve his suspension while injured.

The instance of the process taking too much time will come up a little later on, so stay tuned.


In April, New York Yankees starting pitcher Michael Pineda blatantly used pine tar twice in two weeks against the Boston Red Sox. He wasn’t punished the first time, however. Why? Because this is widely practiced and acknowledged throughout baseball, so apparently that makes it okay.

Despite that arbitrary acceptance, the official rule clearly states: “The pitcher shall not apply a foreign substance of any kind to the ball.” The three most important words there clearly seem to be “of any kind,” but hey, I could be wrong.
Red Sox manager John Farrell only had a problem with Pineda’s usage the second time around because it was too obvious, saying “I fully respect, on a cold night, you're trying to get a little bit of a grip…but when it's that obvious, something has got to be said.”

Wait, why do you fully respect cheating? Or, I'm sorry—why do you fully respect someone altering the ball to potentially give themselves a seemingly unfair advantage? Why is this okay? Oh, because baseball accepts it, just as they accept throwing balls at 95 miles per hour to “get back” at the other team. But we'll get to that.
Regardless of whether the offense is obvious or not should not matter. It's breaking the rules, plain and simple. But then something interesting happened, which only fueled the nonsense. When it appeared that Pineda was using pine tar to alter a baseball the first time around, nothing happened. But the second time around, and because he was “too obvious” with his usage, the hurler was handed a 10-game suspension.
Let's recap: “No foreign substance of any kind,” unless it's widely accepted, apparently. Yet if it’s obvious, you get punished for it. I suppose rules are rules, until they’re not.

 For what it’s worth, cheating of any kind is entirely wrong and should always be punished. The fact that there are arbitrary exceptions is laughable. Also, “10 games” for a starting pitcher is actually two starts in reality. So even if you are punished as a pitcher, you’re not really punished.

Our next two instances are very fun. Let’s start with a temper tantrum, shall we?
It began on June 6 when the Oakland Athletics were facing off against the Baltimore Orioles. Athletics third baseman Josh Donaldson made a tag on Manny Machado, but the Orioles’ rising star apparently didn't take too kindly to it. In fact, he proceeded to throw his helmet at the ground and get in Donaldson’s face.
Why? Because the tag was too hard. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, baseball players are toddlers. Machado had this to say about the incident: “Didn’t agree on the tag. Right play, he made the right play, but just didn’t agree on the tag that he made on me, and I just had to get up and confront him.”
I totally get it. Just the other day at the grocery store a small child bumped my leg while running through the aisles. I should have responded by throwing my vest and yelling at the parents. Oh, wait, that’s exactly what I shouldn't have done. It’s a good thing I possess common sense; it’s a shame Machado didn’t in that moment.
Then it got even better over the weekend.


Just two days later, Machado was at it again. The Athletics were up big on the Orioles in the eighth inning when he stepped to the plate. Relief pitcher Fernando Abad threw a pitch that almost hit him in the knee, so on the next pitch Machado swung incredibly late and released his bat down the third base line—glaring all the while.
Both players were ejected, but there was also a previous incident of note in this contest. On two separate occasions, Machado hit catcher Derek Norris in the back of his head during his back swing. Not once, but twice. That’s not irregular at all, considering the third baseman was already irrationally pissed off heading into the weekend.
On the second shot, Norris actually had to be removed from the game. Surely the 22-year-old asked the catcher if he was alright, right? Well, no. “Norris says batters typically offer a ‘You all right?’ after backswings like that.” He apparently didn't.
So Pineda gets 10 games for putting something on the ball, which means common sense would indicate a much steeper penalty for someone knowingly threw their bat at another human being. Oh, but MLB does not conduct themselves with common sense.
Machado received a five-game suspension. Five. Not only that, but he had the audacity to appeal. The process lasted just over a month until it was revealed that he had lost the appeal. He also recently returned from said suspension.
So here’s the question: How does a player get a lesser suspension for potentially endangering another human being opposed to those who cheat? Because kids, cheating is wrong. Throwing your bat at someone because you're upset, though? That’s almost completely acceptable.



We’ll end on another fun note, even though the Machado temper tantrum coupled with complete lenience really took the cake for me.
On a night when the Arizona Diamondbacks held a rare lead, Brewers starter Kyle Lohse had struggled with his command. In fact, he hit two batters over the course of the game—both instances clearly being accidental.
Manager Kirk Gibson didn’t share that sentiment, however, and in the top of the seventh inning he had reliever Evan Marshall throw intentionally at Ryan Braun with first base open. Why Braun? Because in 2011 he tested positive for PEDs, around the time that the Brewers eliminated the Diamondbacks from the playoffs. Gibson has never gotten over that, and in all likelihood he never will.
We all must have missed the part where Braun pitched and played every position on defense, too.


Anyway, after Marshall missed with his first effort, he drilled Braun in his backside with the second attempt. He was immediately ejected and met with a standing ovation from the Arizona fans. While ridiculous, the fan reaction was neither surprising nor uncommon. What followed was repulsive.
Here was Gibson, a grown man (maybe) who had just ordered one of his pitchers to hit another player. Not only that, but he didn’t have another pitcher warming up in his bullpen. Surely he knew Marshall was going to be ejected. A pitcher entering the game without warming up is incredibly dangerous, and that was just the first part of incompetence displayed by Gibson.
The second part was when Marshall returned to the dugout. His manager held out a fist and bumped it, smiling and congratulating all the while. Were there punishments for either of these “men?” A light fine for Marshall with no suspension, and absolutely nothing for Gibson.
To recap: cheating is bad—which, don't get me wrong, it is. Cheating is an atrocity. Then again, so is endangering another human being. Machado gets five games for throwing his bat at another person while Gibson barely gets a slap on the wrist for ordering a hit and congratulating his player for it.
Sometimes, baseball really is the worst.

Change not forthcoming

What’s wrong with Major League Baseball's suspension process? Everything. The rulings are arbitrary and never really fit the severity of the offense.
You’re going to drop your appeal because you’re hurt? Sure. You put something on the ball for grip? That's fine, just as long as nobody cares. Oh but it’s too obvious? Okay, well then we’ve got to punish you.
You threw a baseball bat at another person? Well in reality you’d likely be brought up on charges (and fired from any other place of employment), but here we’ll just give you a week off without pay.
You, the manager of a professional baseball team, ordered somebody to hit another person with a ball then congratulated him for it? That’s okay. After all, it’s preserving the “unwritten rules” and “integrity of the game.”
MLB needs to figure out what it values more at the end of the day: tradition, or safety and rationality. If there is one thing it is not, it’s consistent. A week or two off during a 162-game season is essentially nothing, and causing bodily harm to another individual should never be acceptable.
That being said, don’t look for the game to change anytime soon. Judging by the way it's headed, we’re likely to witness an unfortunate injury before Major League Baseball realizes it has plenty of issues to sort through.

Of course, then it will be too late.