Baseball is a sport where a player can do something that angers an entire opposing team without breaking a single rule. Then again, baseball is also one of the sports that seems to have more “unwritten rules” than just about any other.
Case in point: In an attempt to break up a double play on Wednesday night, White Sox second baseman Sam Antonacci appeared to slightly elbow Pirates second baseman Brandon Lowe, causing the benches to clear in Chicago.
Lowe objected to the follow-through on Antonacci’s slide and barked at the rookie, then walked away. The umpires made no ejections, but they gave both sides warnings when players from both sides spilled onto the field.
“I just didn’t like the slide. Said my piece and walked away,” Lowe said after the game, according to MLB.com. “I don’t really know what led to it clearing, but bad slide the first night, bad slide tonight, and just kind of tired of it … He said something back. I reiterated what I said, and then I thought that was the end of it, and just kind of walked and went about my business, and then saw our guys coming out, and next thing I know, they were clear.”
Sam Antonacci didn’t think he did anything wrong
“Just to try to make a harder throw for him to have to make,” Sam Antonacci said after the game. “Completely legal play. If you go look at the rulebook or go look at what happened, you can slide as late as you want as long as you keep contact with the bag, and that’s exactly what happened.
“… Here, we’re trying to get a run in any way we can. That’s a close ballgame, these are playoff games and all I’m trying to do is scratch a run there. I’m sure he’s a great guy, but he had a few choice words to say at the end and then kind of walked away after that. When you have a problem and you walk away like that, I’m happy enough to have a conversation, but you can’t walk away. He’s a grown man. With all that being said, they won the game. They get the last laugh, I guess you could say.”
For the record, according to Major League Baseball rules, “When sliding into a base in an attempt to break up a double play, a runner has to make a ‘bona fide slide.’ Such is defined as the runner making contact with the ground before reaching the base, being able to reach the base with a hand or foot, being able to remain on the base at the completion of the slide (except at home plate) and not changing his path for the purpose of initiating contact with a fielder.”
Sam Antonacci appears to have followed that part of the rule. The second part is where it gets a bit of a gray area.
“The slide rule prohibits runners from using a ‘roll block’ or attempting to initiate contact with the fielder by elevating and kicking his leg above the fielder’s knee, throwing his arm or his upper body or grabbing the fielder,” the rule explains.