Soft Sell

BY KEVIN KERNAN

Cue the Kobe Bryant video.

“Soft!”

That is what is happening in baseball, not only in MLB, but in college too.

Bad pitching, bad hitting, bad defense, bad fundamentals. And even bad “benches-clearing’’ situations. Not the real thing.

Notice there are never really any fights anymore in MLB, a la George Brett vs Graig Nettles in the 1977 ALCS or Bud Harrelson vs. Pete Rose in the 1973 NLCS.

No Pier Six Brawls. Those acts of action have been replaced by a lot of angry words and milling about on the field often after a diving across the plate hitter happens to be hit with a pitch.

It is a man-bun world in MLB these days. Players act like they are going to really get after it and after a few angry words, they have to be “held-back’’ by teammates. That’s why it was pretty comical when the Padres and Dodgers had their latest dust-up the other day after Fernando Tatis got hit for the third time in nine days by Dodgers pitchers.

The managers went after it and when San Diego’s Mike Shildt paraded across the field barking at Dave Roberts, Roberts flipped the switch a bit and actually gave Shildt a forearm shiver, telling him there was no intent to hit Tatis. Shildt said enough was enough. Then it was the usual assortment of players and coaches having to be “held back’’ while the bullpen guys ran in only to be “held back.’’

If you are so upset why doesn’t someone throw hands?

Because like everything else in baseball now, no hard contact allowed. It is a soft sell game.

Like pretty much everything else these days in MLB, it’s all for show: MLB The Show. It is not exactly a hockey fight.

You can’t slide hard into second base anymore.

You can’t slide hard into the catcher.

You can’t settle things on the field of play; there must be legislative action taken by Rob Manfred’s minions. Both Shildt and Roberts were suspended a game. Roberts is from the days of real baseball fights, you know, like Jason Varitek giving Alex Rodriguez a catcher’s mitt sandwich as Varitek never took off his mask when Bronson Arroyo hit A-Rod with a pitch in 2004 at Fenway, and I was there for that dandy of a fight where Yankees starting pitcher Tanyon Sturtze wound up with blood running down his face near his ear, thanks to David Ortiz and Gabe Kapler.

This also is not 1998 and Real Baseball when the Yankees went after Armando Benitez after he hit Tino Martinez in the back. If you remember that legitimate benches clearing brawl, Jeff Nelson and Graeme Lloyd came flying out of the Yankees bullpen – they didn’t even have time to take off their bullpen jackets – to go after Benitez, a big man. There were some big swings and 36-year-old Darryl Strawberry was in the middle of it as the fight spilled into the visiting Orioles dugout.

These days it is a hit by pitch even if the batter is pretty much in the wrong like the Angels Zach Neto was the other night, diving across the plate with his swing. Then there was an angry glance, a bunch of nasty words that are deciphered the next day by Jomboy – here’s a hint, they usually start with an F and end with U – more jawing and a lot more holding back of the so-called “combatants.’’

Like pretty much everything else these days in MLB, it’s all for show, MLB The Show. It is not exactly a hockey fight.

Not a lot of real charging of the mound.

Not a lot of anything.

That’s why here at BallNine, I must commend Shohei Ohtani. Ohtani got hit by a pitch by the Padres in retaliation for the Tatis plunking and Ohtani totally understood what was going on, made his way to first base, waving off his teammates and telling them to stay in their dugout before eventually making his way over to the Padres dugout to calm them down. Boys, stop your barking. Ohtani wasn’t playing the role of fake tough guy like all the others.

Shohei didn’t need his time wasted by the Padres coming out of their dugout and then his Dodgers teammates coming out of their dugout and the two sides having another dance-off.

Let’s play baseball.

The Neto Affair against the Astros really was an overreach. I’m more offended by Zach putting an “H’’ in his first name rather than a “K’’ than I am by the pitch that Hunter Brown threw that hit Zach. I get it, boys will be boys and most of these players are coming from college programs where there is a lot of peacocking going around on an inning-by-inning basis.

Again, it is all part of The Show.

There are no real fights anymore in baseball.

In college, teams unbutton their shirts and act tough and come out on the field looking like slobs. They flip their bats on bases on balls. They prance around the bases doing basketball sliders on home runs instead of the old-fashioned home run trot where you don’t show up your opponent.

Listen hitters, just do what Aaron Judge does. The running around the bases is not The Show. The home run is The Show.

And please do not think I’m calling for baseball games to divulge into UFC Fight Night, just stop with all the fake tough guy antics. Make your way to first base and go on with the game just as Ohtani did. But if there comes a time where you need to throw punches to make your point, go ahead and do it.

I don’t know if this generation of players, who are all so huggy with each other – after all they all come up through the same Perfect Game Tournaments and Showcases – are capable of fisticuffs in the way George Brett came up swinging against Graig Nettles in Game 5 of the 1977 ALCS between the Yankees and Royals after Nettles kicked Brett.

By the way, no one was thrown out after that fight. The game continued.

As long as no one got really hurt it was all part of the entertainment of baseball and that is okay. The game polices itself, or at least it used to do that.

And when those legitimate occasions arise where a pitcher goes way too inside on purpose looking for contact, take care of it on the field and you know what, there might be less hit by pitches. Pitchers also could do a much better job of showing command, but that would mean that they would not be bowing down to the Velo Kings who run MLB Pitch Labs. Pitch with command. Take a page from Greg Maddux’ book. Locate, locate, locate.

My Hall of Fame writer friend Hal McCoy unearthed this tidbit this week about Maddux. He once threw a 78-pitch complete game and not one pitch reached 90 miles per hour. Yes Nerds, it can be done. Hal went on to write that Maddux is the only pitcher in MLB history to win 15 or more games for 17 straight seasons. He holds the record for Gold Gloves with 18 and won four straight Cy Young Awards and 355 games.

All that, and Tom Glavine once told me Maddux would not even be drafted in today’s velocity obsessed pitching world.

And as for college baseball, it really hit a low point on Sunday when Coastal Carolina head coach Kevin Schnall was ejected by homeplate umpire Angel Campos in the first inning because Schnall marched onto the field and told Campos he had already missed three pitches. Campos was a major league ump at one time and ejected Matt Kemp who was in the dugout arguing balls and strikes way back in 2012.

Schnall should know that when you say the word “you’’ to an umpire you at once personalize the situation and umpires do not take kindly to that and the questioning of their balls and strikes calls. Still, this was Game 2 of the College World Series with LSU needing one win to capture their eighth title so the umpire should have been a bit more forgiving here. Turn off the rabbit ears. Don’t be so soft.

Schnall was trying to get a clarification on how and why a warning was issued in the first place. “If that warranted an ejection, man, there will be a lot of ejections,’’ Schnall said after sitting out the 5-3 loss. “As an umpire I feel like it is your job to manage the game, the National Championship game with some poise, some calmness and a little bit of tolerance.’’

But soft is the word of the day and Schnall was ejected along with Coastal Carolina’s first base coach Matt Schilling.

For college baseball’s premier event and ESPN, it was all a bad look.

I believe baseball could use a little more manliness in the game and that means sometimes allowing it to get a little rough out there, but the game has been so over-analyzed and over-legislated that is just not possible anymore.

Manfred and his Minions have made the 2025 version of MLB the softest the game has ever been and just from an entertainment level that is not good for the game. What’s really funny is that several “news outlets’’ referred to the Tatis incident with Shildt and Roberts as a “brawl.’’

It was the farthest thing from a brawl. It was a group of millionaires calling each other names, there was no brawl.

If there ever was an old-fashioned baseball brawl these days, I can only imagine the amount of handwringing by the media and the number of suspensions handed out by MLB softees.

Softness shows itself in many ways in baseball, including throws from the outfield, which used to be a sense of pride for the outfielders to show off their arms. They have never been this off-target as in today’s game. Check the highlights. They can’t even reach home anymore for the most part and most throws go well up the line.

Soft throws, soft game – in so many soft ways.