Bat-tossing may become an obscure Olympic sport sometime, but it’s frowned upon in baseball, especially if there’s intent to do harm, which brings us to Orioles third baseman Manny Machado and what he did Sunday versus the A’s. One gander at the video and you can clearly see the bat didn’t just slip out of his hands. He flung the piece of lumber in the hopes that it landed on a player’s dome.
Immediately after the game, Machado, who was ejected said the “bat slipped out of my hands. I was trying to make contact.” Yeah, riiiight. I don’t think so and you can bet Major League Baseball will agree with me. He deserves a hefty fine and a long unpaid vacation for pulling that off. There’s no place in baseball for it. He’s 21 going on 12. It appears Machado took severe umbradge with getting pitched inside by Fernando Abad because, ya know, that never happens in the sport.
He also didn’t like the routine tag A’s third baseman Josh Donaldson placed on him Friday night. That’s right, FRIDAY NIGHT. With the latter point, Machado never really said why the tag was a problem: “Donaldson made the right play, but I just didn’t agree on the tag that he made on me, and I just had to get up and confront him.” Uh, so explain to me why you are angry again? Manager Buck Showalter wasn’t sure what set off Machado but added, “Until you’ve walked a mile in a man’s shoes, you really don’t know what goes on, but it’s a pretty easy call for me what side of the fence I’m going to sit on.” C’mon, really? It was dangerous. It was dumb. There must be something about the name Manny that brings out this kind of kooky, head-scratching behavior because I don’t know how else you can explain away what Machado did on Sunday.