The ridiculous thing about Bautista's comments regarding the bat flip was that he legitimately made it a Latin thing, saying those players play with more flair, so American fans and players should just accept it.
As someone who has covered winter ball the last four years, the Latin players don't accept any showboating like he did. If he did that during a Dominican winter league game, he wouldn't have made it to first base without the benches clearing. Latin players in Mexico, Venezuela and the Dominican clear the benches over a lot less and they do it often. It's a 2-3 times a week occurrence.
So in reality, what he is saying by "accepting it" is I'm going to do it and we are going to fight over it.
__________________
Please check out my books on baseball history. They include the bio of star second baseman Dots Miller. A book featuring 20 Moonlight Graham players who got into just one game. Another with 13 players who were with the Pittsburgh Pirates during the regular season, but never played a game. There's also one about 27 baseball families, as well as a day-by-day look at the worst team in Pittsburgh Pirates history. All five can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/John-D...hor/B0DH87Q2DS
|