Blue Jays: Yes Jose, You Can Flip That Bat

The best way to describe that bat flip from Toronto Blue Jays’ slugger Jose Bautista would be this: it was a release.

When it’s playoff time, things change. When Jose flipped that bat, he was releasing the frustrations of an entire city that has been begging for a winner for over two decades.

More from Toronto Blue Jays

He was releasing the frustration of playing over 10 years in minor and major league baseball, toiling away as a utility fielder, and eventually being the face of a franchise that just could never seem to get it together.

He was also certainly releasing that anger we all felt when we thought we were going to get screwed just a half inning earlier.

It was justified, it was passionate, and in that moment, we were all flipping that bat.

At the Texas Rangers, at Harold Reynolds for his comments about us earlier, at the umpires for making the series more about them than the teams, at major league baseball for scheduling all of our home games in Toronto at noon and four during weekdays, and we were most certainly flipping that bat at our own crappy luck here in Toronto sports.

Oct 14, 2015; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons argues with the umpires in the 7th inning after a run is scored by Texas Rangers second baseman Rougned Odor (not pictured) in game five of the ALDS at Rogers Centre. Mandatory Credit: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports

As for the “unwritten rules” in baseball, look, I’ve played this game for fifteen years in five different countries across two different continents. Those “unwritten rules” are about as open to interpretation as the Bible or the Qur’an.

It all depends on three things: who you’re playing, where you’re playing, and who’s watching.

What is OK in the Dominican Republic is not OK in Kansas. What is cool in Japan pisses people off in the Netherlands. I can name off a thousand different places with a thousand different interpretations of “the code”, and they are all right somewhere.

Did that look any worse than Joey’s flip? One of those guys pimped a single for God’s sakes!

That’s what you get with a sport so widely played around the world for such a long time. The game and the players involved are reflected by the culture that surrounds them all, and that’s not secluded to just baseball. It happens in hockey, soccer, football, and basketball as well.

Didn’t that guy just look like an idiot for celebrating a dunk over a guy a full foot shorter than him? But in China that’s fair game.

The only thing I would have done differently? Flip it at your own dugout, not the Rangers.

He makes that one change and I guarantee you the talking point would be about how much of a suck Sam Dyson is for getting in Edwin and Tulo’s face during that inning.

To top it off, Blue Jays great Joe Carter summed it up best on Mike and Mike this morning on ESPN Radio:

“There is nothing wrong with what he did,” said Carter. “In the playoffs, all bets are off…. that is the biggest home run that anyone can witness, and I should know, so I have no problem with that. Everything is magnified in the playoffs. The regular season (is a different story).”

Touch ‘em all Joe.

Next: Blue Jays Who Stepped Up During the ALDS

More from Tip of the Tower

Home/Toronto Blue Jays