Once again, the Fun Police are out in full force in baseball.
Heaven forbid a player should admire his home run for longer than the baseball code allows (as Derek Dietrich of the Reds did this season), or, gasp, flip his bat more flamboyantly than the code deems proper (as Tim Anderson of the White Sox blasphemed this past week).
Dietrich’s penance was a 93 mph Chris Archer fastball behind his back in his next at-bat. Anderson’s penalty was getting hit by a Brad Keller heater. And just like that, benches cleared, and the 2019 version of the never-ending debate over the evolution and application of baseball unwritten rules was back in full force.