Baseball s Most Disrespectful Home Runs | FiveThirtyEight
When Yermín Mercedes of the Chicago White Sox got a 3-0 meatball to hit in the ninth inning of a May 17 blowout against the Minnesota Twins, he didn t miss. But after Mercedes hit the ball 429 feet for his sixth home run of the year, his Hall of Fame manager, Tony La Russa, was swift in condemnation. La Russa called the dinger a big mistake, said Mercedes was clueless, joked that he d spank Mercedes if the athlete wasn t so big and strong, and insisted such a disrespectful home run wouldn t come off Mercedes s bat again. When the Twins Tyler Duffey got himself ejected the next night by throwing a 93 mph fastball directly behind Mercedes on the first pitch of his at-bat, La Russa told reporters he didn t have a problem with it.
The backlash stemmed from a breach of an unwritten rule of baseball: Mercedes had swung away on a 3-0 count while his team was winning by a ton. What constitutes a ton ? It s not always clear. It s also possible that Mercedes violated a more general unwritten statute against embarrassing one s opponent, given the combination of the 3-0 count, Chicago s 15-4 lead, and the fact that the Twins had waved the white flag by bringing in a position player, utilityman Willians Astudillo, to pitch.
Did Mercedes really violate baseball s non-rules? If so, how severe an imaginary crime did he commit? How rare was his transgression? And have past aggressors against the sport s unspoken honor code faced the same firestorm Mercedes did? To answer these questions, let s start where all fruitful hunts begin: in Baseball-Reference.com s Stathead search tool.
Baseball grows more interesting as I age. In ten years I may be able to sit through an entire game.