Enough with whether the Yankees can come back, or if the Cubs have another World Series in them. The real question this baseball playoff season for viewers is: Why is it still OK for players to spit constantly?
No matter the team or the player, you’re guaranteed to see dozens of spit takes during any given broadcast. In a highly unscientific viewing survey by this fan, players, coaches and managers spit an average of once every 30 seconds.
Clearly this disgusting custom goes back to the days of chewing tobacco, when the best mouths of a generation were destroyed by chew and pouches. Tobacco has been marginalized by the MLB, but kids emulate their heroes and now every angel-headed hipster with a bat thinks he’s expected to expectorate.
But the question remains: Why? No other sport allows this. Basketball and tennis players are much more active during games, but you don’t see them spitting on their courts. Like baseball players, golfers are surrounded by absorbent grass and sand, yet still loogies aren’t allowed on the fairways. When, in 2011, Tiger Woods spit on the 12th green after missing a putt at the Dubai Desert Classic, pearls were clutched. Dowagers fainted. Meetings were held, and Woods was fined an undisclosed sum.
You might argue that baseball players have so much excess saliva because of all the gum and seeds they eat during the game … which begs another question:
Why is baseball the only sport where it’s OK for players to eat snacks while they’re playing?
Every MLB dugout is stocked with buckets – actual buckets – of sunflower seeds, chewing gum, candy and energy bars. And all the players take advantage of it. Why wouldn’t they? In the average workplace, when someone brings in snacks, it’s an all-out sprint to get to them first. If your default workplace setting is “buckets of tasty snacks,” you’re probably going to partake.
Javy Baez of the Cubs constantly chomps on sunflower seeds – even during his at-bats. Yankees giant Aaron Judge told ESPN.com that he grabs two pieces of gum before a game and keeps chewing the same mushy, flavorless wad until he makes an out. The situation in Los Angeles has gotten so severe that the Dodgers’ Yasiel Puig can’t stop licking his bat, presumably in anticipation of his next snack.
So why does baseball allow this? Once again, you don’t expect to see Stephen Curry draining a Go-GURT each time he drains a three. Or Eli Manning going into the huddle with Skittles squirreled into his cheeks.
Sure, other sports benefit from halftime or period breaks that let players grab a quick pick-me-up or a slice of pepperoni or whatever recharges their batteries. But you’d think professional baseball players who spend the vast majority of the game either standing around or sitting on the bench could make it through nine innings without needing a constant sweet or savory fix.
Keep the snacks in the clubhouse and the saliva in your mouth. We can hope that these gross/weird customs get phased out, but we’re probably just spitting into the wind.
