Bat flipping has become a popular thing to do in baseball.
We all know that the best bat flips come after a player hits a home run, but the question is, is it getting out of hand?
Chris Sale and Rick Porcello weighed in on the hot topic during a conversation with The Boston Globe’s Pete Abraham.
“I feel if you’re showing positive emotion for your team, that’s great,” Sale said. “Flip your bat all you want. But I think if you’re showing the other guy up — and a pitcher can do that, too — that’s what I would call unsportsmanlike.”
Sale has played with some of the best sluggers in Major League Baseball, so he has seen both sides of the bat flip — the celebratory bat flip, and the showing-the-other-guy-up bat flip. He doesn’t seem to mind the bat flip so long as it’s not done to take a shot at the pitcher.
Porcello also had a few thoughts on the topic.
“I guarantee if I walked around the mound and did a whole bunch of [stuff] after I punched a guy out, I’d get a fine after a while,” Porcello said. “Be honest, the game’s not about pitchers anymore. It’s about the ball getting hit over the fence.”
Porcello’s statement is probably very true, if he did anything out of line in the MLB’s eyes, he’d be expecting a fine. It seems like the Red Sox pitcher isn’t too happy with how things are going in the league, that’s for sure.
No matter what your stance is on the matter, the MLB probably won’t be eliminating the bat flip any time soon, if ever.
