This is why — and how — major league ballplayers are best at settling their own feuds.
By the time Sean Nolin plunked Freddie Freeman in the first inning of Wednesday night’s 4-2 Washington Nationals’ victory over Atlanta’s Braves, pitcher Will Smith’s apparent vendetta on Juan Soto the night before was already taken care of.
Freeman and his teammates used the “unwritten rules” to quickly settle the brief beanball battle before it got out of hand.
And it was was Atlanta’s Freeman, one of the most notorious Nats’ killers in the game — and by all accounts one of its nicest guys — demonstrating that he he was fine taking one in the hip if it prevented another Bryce Harper–Hunter Strickland situation.