The voice over the action is a little distracting as Carlos Gomez reflects after the event, so notice that after he hits the ball, he hesitates in the manner normally associated with enjoying the pleasure of a home run. Then, he has to run, and he gets to third base, so maybe he could have made it all the way home. Anyway, once on the third, he reacts to a taunt from the pitcher.
ADDED: What did the pitcher say?
At issue was Gomez's flip of the bat following a third-inning triple....I'm theorizing that what makes a taunt really aggravating is when it repeats and gives reality to the nagging voice you've already got in your head. Gomez knew that it was stupid and embarrassing to watch the ball fly and not take off running, and when Cole said exactly that Gomez was overcome with emotion.
"I grabbed the ball from (third baseman Josh Harrison) and I said, 'If you're going to hit a home run, you can watch it. If you're going to hit a fly ball to center field, don't watch it.'" said Cole. "I didn't curse at him, I didn't try to provoke a fight. I was frustrated and I let my emotions get the better of me."
AND: The alternative theory is that a person reacts more strongly to untrue or unfair statements, out of outrage and surprise. Which is it? I'm not just talking about Gomez, but the whole category of incidents in which one person says something and the other loses emotional and physical control. What is more of a trigger — hearing what you already fear or believe is the truth or hearing something that you hadn't thought was true about yourself?
AND ALSO: Yes, I know. Cue the comments in the category: See, this is what happens when you let women watch sports.
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Baseball. Another component of my Althouse Replacement Theory.
Bench clearing brawl is the phrase I'm used to. What makes a taunt effective is its truth. Gomez was already feeling stupid and angry with himself. The pitcher's words stung because they were right.
Oooh. A one-game suspension.
The cover is off the ball.
I can respect where Gomez is coming from. It's like liberal bullying: when we do what you do it's okay, but when you do it I'm going to let you know how much you're disrespecting my team and the game, and that makes you a bad person and MLB should take some money from you.
Similar thing happened last year with him, and with Jose Fernandez. Jose Fernandez did nothing wrong but got jawed at, because he happened to decide to spit when rounding third base. He wasn't doing it to disrespect anybody though.
"Bench clearing brawl is the phrase I'm used to."
Not on the team's official website!
Gomez started the same thing at the end of last year against the Braves. He got intentionally hit and ended up tossed out of the game. At some point he's got to learn to keep his cool, voluntarily taking himself out of the lineup for the rest of the game is probably exactly why opposing pitchers have singled him out to antagonize. They used to try to do the same thing with Prince Fielder but he rarely took the bait.
Baseball is huge on respect. Pittsburgh spent last season beaning other teams with baseballs. So teams that play the Pirates are already on edge. Add in the taunt and the embarrassment Gomez was probably feeling - and a little hotheaded-ness and this is what you get.
The good thing is that the extra-inning game exhausted Pirate pitching and my Reds are heading to Pittsburgh for 4 games. Go Reds!
tim maguire,
You're right about the phrase, but in this case their was no brawl. So unless you say something clumsy like a "play that cleared both benches," incident is a good as anything else.
Proper response:
Score the run and hit again.
Brawl, not incident. Even the PXP called it a brawl.
And Gomez is an idiot.
Did anyone call time out? Otherwise, tagging Gomez with the ball when he left the base would be just as good. Of course, coming close enough to tag him, particularly if it was the pitcher, would almost certainly get a punch to the face in return.
Althouse's theory about Gomez' outsized reaction to the taunt may be true, but I didn't see much evidence of that in Gomez's post game interview. There was an awlful lot of machismo in Gomez's comments and not a lot of reflection on what he cost his team. Did anyone else buy his (I thought it would be a fly-out) argument for flipping his bat? I'm not certain he is all that aware he initially did something foolish..
I think in an ultra-competitive setting like baseball it doesn't matter what was said. The mere fact the pitcher went out of his way to say anything left the runner with little choice but to retaliate or risk looking like a pushover.
If this is what happens when women watch sports, let's have more women watching sports.
Both are equally true depending on what is factored by way of a human's at the moment middle mind set. By way of example any man being called to account by the woman he loves - it can range from laughter at the accusation(S) to steel rod bending anger. It's something particularly of the moment.
Didn't Gomez run his ass-off when he hit a homer against the Braves this year! As I recall he was being an asshole jerk (again) in that incident!
#1 is the answer. When a taunt is wrong, then you laugh at it.
I thunk the most maddening remarks are those with half truth or twisted truth. I once had a fellow ask me, over the phone, if someone slandering me - that I had stolen money and that he had a) fired me and b) broken my cheekbone with one punch - was truthful, and my honest, spontaneous guffaws convinced him without further details. So straight fiction does not so much annoy.
If say I had screwed something up, in a way not deserving of termination/"that could happen to anyone," and been terminated, and it bandied about that I had been fired for incompetence, that would probably sting worse than if I were totally innocent and being scapegoated. Better or worse if I had been fired for screwing his wife? Hmm. If I were incompetent and were fired for it, I would chiefly have shame, I think, but would not blame the other except perhaps as punishment exceeded crime. I was certainly mad when a long time ago I was inconvenienced abd then fired, apparently for making too much money, and then called the next day by the fellow for computer help.
Umm, woolgathering, but I think the catalyst of rage would be injustice with a factor somehow expressed of internal/external plausibility. (I should say Mr Cheekbone is a known fabricator.)
Who won?
The saddest part of this is that they've been promoting Gomez for weeks over the upcoming bobble-head day (this Sunday) honoring him for winning the Golden Glove. That should be presenting him as a great role model for kids and so forth.
Now, everyone there on Sunday, each with a little Carlos Gomez doll can reenact loss of control and the threatening of violence.
Sad!!!
Gomez' reaction was completely out of proportion to anything that occurred to precipitate it.
I've been a big fan of the guy since he was brought up by the Mets but, on this, he is wrong, wrong, wrong.
After you hit the ball, you run. He might have had an inside the park HR had he done so. He is claiming that he thought it would be caught, and he is lying.
His actions are repeatedly endangering the health (and heads) of his teammates. The idea of a bench clearing brawl over something like that is unacceptable.
See, this is what happens when you let women watch sports.
Nothing wrong with letting women watch sports.
It's letting them make comments that reeks. And, suffrage.
One of the worst things about stupid mistakes is that people tend to double down on them. "If you think that was stupid, wait till you see what I do next." The plus side is that Gomez now is more famous for being a hothead than for being stupid.
the wolf: "Gomez' reaction was completely out of proportion to anything that occurred to precipitate it."
Nonsense.
As many commenters here will happily inform you, our history with slavery and Jim Crow is all the justification Gomez needed to set that cracker Cole right.
I mean, Cole is not even a "white hispanic"!
That was exciting. The Command Center in Manhattan probably has it all on tape using great angles. Maybe like NFL Films, Baseball Leagues need to produce a highlights film from those tapes every year.
This one baseball game saw more physical violence than during all the protests during the the recall elections.
If the protesters were really considered to be "rioting", then what is this behavior to be called? And why should athletes gets a free pass when it comes to assault and battery in the workplace? Lock these violent bums up and teach them a lesson.
If Cole wants to keep batters from flipping their bats he should stop throwing meat.
Rumor has it Gomez was called "Maricon by the pitcher. Now, the fact that so many hetero commenters were driven off of this place explains the paucity of comments here and on all threads. But the irony that Annie would be so intolerant is precious. A UCLA, lily white upper middle class pitcher calling a kid from the barrio Maricon. Of course Annie goes for the upper middle class white. Hypocrite X 5.
I think you got it right the first time. Gomez knew he was an idiot. But he's the type who would never admit it so his reaction to being confronted is to go ballistic so as to deflect attention from his shame. Hearing something about yourself you hadn't thought of usually results in a momentary set back while your brain processes the hurtful information.
I love a good bench-clearing brawl. So exciting! And the camaraderie!
The best, bar none, was when Nolan Ryan schooled Robin Ventura. "Ryan stated afterwards it was the same maneuver he used on steers he had to brand on his Texas ranch."
Never heard it referred to as a "Golden Glove" before, Althouse. It's "Gold Glove," unless Gomez is also a boxer . . .
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