Don’t judge a book by looking at the cover.
Whether you learned that lesson from your parents, from a teacher or from Bo Diddley, the message is universally accepted as a good one.
But in practice, sadly, it’s not quite as well-adopted.
It’s the message that Joe Maddon delivered Friday morning, a day after controversy arose because someone failed to remember that lesson.
That someone was Pittsburgh Pirates skipper Clint Hurdle, who criticized Javy Baez and questioned his “respect for the game” after Baez emphatically tossed a bat in frustration during Wednesday night’s game.