Two weeks ago, I posted a piece that drew a great deal of thoughtful commentary and debate. I attribute this to the grey-area nature of the question and, also, because I did not weigh in on the question but, instead, provided just one person’s lens with which to view it.
The question, briefly, is this: Is it unethical for a high school baseball coach to cut the grass differently in order to exaggerate his team’s strength and an opponent’s corresponding weakness, such as one team being exceptionally fast and the other slow?
Since the time of that post I have spent some time thinking about this and will weigh in with the answer: Yes.
Let me start by providing an analogy to frame the issue more clearly.
As any baseball fan knows, the distance from home plate to the outfield fence varies greatly from ballpark to ballpark. At the high school level, the official rules state the center field fence should be no closer than 350 feet from home plate; the recommended distance is listed as a range of somewhere between 375 and 410 feet. In addition, certain types of pitchers throw pitches which, due to their speed and movement, tend to result in different types of hits. Pitchers who favor a straight (four-seam) fastball yield more fly balls while others, typically pitchers whose fastballs exhibit greater movement, result in more ground balls.1
So, imagine that the game in question features the home team’s pitcher who throws groundball-prone pitches and the visiting team’s pitcher who throws fly-ball-prone pitches. How would you evaluate this coach moving the fence 60 feet closer in order to increase the likelihood of home runs for his team? And then, the following week, when the tables turn, having the grounds crew move the fence 60 feet back, to again provide a more favorable setting (for his team) given the respective pitchers?
Certainly, this creates a “home-field advantage”—one of the primary arguments given in favor of such grass-cutting practices. But home-field advantage is not something to be added to the home team’s favor. And it certainly isn’t intended to be advantageous by means of manipulating the actual field of the home team. This advantage, instead, results from various factors which just happen to exist for teams who host others such as familiarity with the field, less travel time, better fan involvement, etc. To exacerbate this advantage by manipulating the field—and doing so manipulatively, no less—goes beyond the typical scope of such an advantage. The home players may be accustomed to their field’s quirks and imperfections, but that’s much different than building quirks and imperfections into the field to favor that team.2
In addition, one imagines that the home team serves as a sort of host—actually, it’s explicitly so, as they literally host the visitor. The ideal host would certainly want to avoid manipulatively altering the playing field in order that the visitors encountered an even greater disadvantage. Acting in this grass-cutting, fence-moving manner confuses the very notion of being a good host.
In the 1960’s, the San Francisco Giants heavily watered down the base paths when playing the L.A. Dodgers, almost turning it into mud in certain cases. They did this to decrease the likelihood that the Dodgers’ all-time base stealer, Maury Wills, would steal a base. This practice is now called by his name: to Maury-Wills someone. It’s also called being a bad host.
A final point resulted from my initial post through my Twitter account.3 It focused on the messaging of a grass-cutting high school coach to his players. In fewer than 140 characters he eloquently argues: “If my players believe that the grass length trumps our grit, I don’t like that message.” It’s as though the coach has implicitly messaged to his players that, in order to achieve their goals that game—win, be your best, etc.—they will need to cut the grass much shorter than usual or, in my example, move the home run fence considerably.
Grass-cutting and fence-moving do not break any of the rules of baseball. This, in part, is what makes it so difficult. Though as we’ve mentioned elsewhere on this blog, sportsmanship, like manners, does not ask one to merely follow the rules. Are you morally obligated to hold the door for a stranger? No, but it would certainly exhibit great manners. Are you morally obligated to leave the grass at a constant length? Maybe not, but it would sure show great sportsmanship. And maybe so, as we don’t want our young athletes losing sight of their grit, being poor hosts, and garnering some additional advantage they don’t deserve. Not to mention wanting to avoid putting the grounds crew in an awkward position and doing shoddy work.
1For an interesting, in-depth analysis of this, see, “Serving it up: profiling home run prone pitchers.”
2This seems especially true if done so on a game-by-game basis, which we’re examining here, as opposed to throughout the entirety of the season. This distinction is worth consideration, though still doesn’t alter the ethics of such a practice.
3Thanks to Tyler Johnson (@TylerDJohnson), Development Manager: Positive Coaching Alliance, Colorado.