Feelings of accomplishment escape from the soul, finding their way out of the body to display feelings that become publicly immortalized. You know better than most that making it this far in the postseason is absolutely a gift. Since the advent of Moneyball and widespread acceptance of statistical analysis, unofficial barriers have been broken.
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But games have changed.
It’s unclear if getting ink of an early playoff round’s pivotal moment is allowed by the unwritten rules. Eight years later, Roger Clemens struck out 15 Seattle Mariners on the October 14.
After Bautista went yard, he unleashed arguably the most triumphant bat flip you’ll ever see. Many cited a lack of respect for the game.
“(Jose) is a huge role model for the younger generation that’s coming up playing this game, and I mean he’s doing stuff that kids do in Wiffle ball games and backyard baseball. Marcus Stroman’s sister incorporated the bat flip into her kindergarten classroom. Bautista’s bat flip was already epic, but now it’s being taken to another level. The GIFs, memes, and tweets spread through social media in rapid succession. They cleared again at the close of the seventh, when Dyson tapped Blue Jays shortstop Troy Tulowitzki on the behind – Dyson said in a conciliatory manner – and the two exchanged words.
“Back in the day, he (Bautista) never would have done that”, Sutcliffe said. Was Carlton Fisk out of line when he used body English to wave his home run fair in 1975?
Then in the seventh inning, Oscar felt good and really laid into his ghost swing from the nosebleed seats – and Bautista delivered with the historic home run. Based on his comments, Bautista seems to agree.
Curt Schilling, on ESPN afterwards, said he understood Bautista’s emotion but also said he hoped Bautista would be ready to get hit next season when the two teams faced each other. However, if he does something that outrageous in a regular-season game, he should be prepared to face the chin music. I liked that players addressed those sort of transgressions with their own brand of frontier justice. One for the history books.
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Bautista made it clear that his game has always been about passion.
