Other unwritten rules in baseball deal with not embarrassing
other teams. For instance, if a game is in the eighth inning and
the team that is batting is winning by ten runs, there are certain
things that they are not supposed to do. They are not supposed
to swing if they have a 3-0 count because the next pitch will
surely be a strike (4). Teams are also not supposed to steal bases
because the other team probably will not try to stop them if they
are way behind. Both of these examples are about players not trying
to improve their personal statistics because they would be rubbing
it in on the other team (5). The other side of this argument is
that in today's era, it is a lot easier to score a lot of runs
in a short period of time. Teams can come back from large deficits
so the feeling is that a big lead is not safe so they should still
keep playing hard even with a huge lead. Again, these are not
rules in the rulebook that they can be disciplined for, but other
teams may react badly and it can result in someone getting injured.
A third way that baseball can demonstrate poor sportsmanship
is when a batter is hit by a pitch, and the team retaliates (6).
Often, if a batter is hit by a pitch, his pitcher will go out
and hit a batter on the other team during the next inning (7).
What makes this poor sportsmanship is that the pitchers are intentionally
hitting batters. Eventually, someone will be angry with the pitcher
and charge the mound, leading to both teams sprinting out onto
the field to fight. One reason that this is bad for sports is
because these baseball players are supposed to be role models
for younger kids. When kids see professionals behave in this manner,
they might think that it is acceptable behavior. This completely
works against the philosophy of teaching good sportsmanship and
ethical behavior to younger athletes.
A more recent example of unethical behavior in sports comes
from the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. In one of the ice
skating competitions, there was some sort of secret agreement
between two judges where one judge would vote for the other judge's
country in return for a vote for their own country in an event
later on. This scandal was investigated and when Olympic officials
learned that a deal was made, another gold medal was awarded in
the same event meaning there were two winners.
All examples of poor sportsmanship basically deal with people with the win at all costs attitude. In their minds sportsmanship is not as important as winning and a lot of people today are willing to do almost anything to be successful, even if it means bending a few rules, and displaying poor sportsmanship towards opponents.
Works Cited
1. Livingston, Bill. "Good sports gone bad; Sportsmanship
getting harder to find." Editorial. The Plain
Dealer 5 May 2002: 2.
2. Ibd
3. Jones, Todd. "Unwritten rules are not meant to be broken." Editorial. The Sporting News 11 June
2001: 1.
4. Ibd
5. Ibd
6. Jones, Todd. "The etiquette of retaliation." Editorial. The Sporting News 4 June 2001: 1.
7. Ibd
Pressures combine to influence behavior-This article talks about how sportsmanship has declined and some of the reasons why.
Good Sports Gone Bad-Sportsmanship getting harder to find- This article talks about how sportmanship is not what it used to be, and it gives examples.
CTSA-The Citizenship Through Sports Alliance (Homepage)- This organization gives different ways to show good sportsmanship
NCAA-NCAA Homepage