Kansas City Royals: It’s time to ignore the unwritten rules of baseball

On the heels of a couple of violations of the “unwritten” rules of the game, it is finally time for teams to simply ignore them and just play the game. This includes the Kansas City Royals of course.

On Monday night, the Padres had a 7 run lead in the 8th inning against the Rangers. Baseball’s brightest young star Fernando Tatis Jr. tattooed a 3-0 92 MPH fastball offering from Juan Nicasio. The result was the first career grand glam followed by a purpose pitch thrown behind Manny Machado. Both managers made comments about these rules and quite frankly the only person who didn’t look foolish was Fernando Tatis Jr.

It’s time to ignore these rules let these guys simply play.

Ironically at the end of the Kansas City Royals game on Sunday, Minnesota closer Sergio Romo made a gesture towards the Royals dugout after striking out Jorge Soler looking. Apparently the Royals dugout was making the same sort of comments that Royals fans were about home plate umpire John Bacon’s unpredictable strike zone.

Once again there was some mild discussion about these unwritten rules of the game.

Luckily the Royals didn’t get caught up in any nonsense in Monday’s game that would have lead to any sort of disciplinary action. For some reason, these unwritten rules have started to become excuses for poor performance on the field. It is time for the younger Royals players to just be themselves and enjoy the game.

Baseball continues to be criticized for how it is losing its appeal. Peter Panacy back in 2013 discussed it and blamed how the game doesn’t promote their young stars and how it isn’t appealing to a generation that needs “instant satisfaction”. This is still true in 2020.

With a multitude of rule changes to encourage speeding up the game, those with power in baseball are continuing to show that they don’t want to promote their young talent – simply because of the unwritten rules.

As the Kansas City Royals continue to rebuild, let’s hope the organization doesn’t hold back some of their younger players from simply being themselves.

Getting to witness the reaction by Nick Heath after hitting a double for both his first MLB hit, along with his first two RBI, earlier this season against the Cubs was a classic example of possibly going against an unwritten rule.

There is no reason that players can’t show some emotion and excitement on the field during games. Celebrating and providing the fans with a little style should be openly accepted in today’s game. The game needs this if it wants to gain future fans.

But as fans we must understand that when the Royals celebrate and do things that aren’t inline with what we have been accustomed to in the game, there is also the ability to not overreact. Let’s not get disgusted when the team in the other dugout does something we don’t approve of.

Who cares if there is a bat flip or if someone shows up one of the Royals pitchers?

In order to be able to break the rules, we as Royals fans need to understand that other teams are allowed to do the same thing.