The Reds And Pirates Brawled After A Killer Home Run Stare Down

Baseball is all about the unwritten rules. As ridiculous as they can be there’s a bit of an understanding among players that certain acts will result in some kinda response from the opposing team. One of those unwritten rules typically has to do with home runs. For whatever reason, when a player hits a home run it has been decided they are not allowed to enjoy it. Celebrations of any kind are out of the question.

Of course, this doesn’t stop players choosing to do so anyway. Usually, the drama has to do with bat flips, but on Sunday afternoon it had to do with exactly how long Derek Dietrich chose to stare at his booming home run against Chris Archer.

Dietrich crushed this pitch beyond measure. Archer hung one over the middle of the plate and as a result, it got sent literally out of the park and into the river behind it. That’s the exact kind of home run that someone should stare at because it’s a miraculous marvel that he was even able to do it. It was very possibly Dietrich’s best moment of his career. He should take great joy in it. Well, Archer didn’t take kindly to him enjoying his boom shot so he responded by throwing behind him. The results were not great.

As expected, the Reds took exception to Archer’s response. The Pirates took exception to someone having the indecency to stare at an awesome home run and what resulted was a really dumb brawl over something that should have been fun. Yasiel Puig, in particular, was furious with Archer and had to be held back by the entirety of both teams to avoid an even bigger brawl occurring. All of this was started because Archer was upset over someone hitting a home run off of him and marveling at it, as if someone made him judge, jury, and executioner.

Now was Archer’s response the worst ever? No. He didn’t actually make contact with Dietrich with the pitch and if you’re going to try and show aggression towards someone there are worse responses than throwing behind. That said, that Archer felt the need at all to respond is dumb. Home runs are fun and staring at ones you send to the moon should be perfectly acceptable. If he’s that upset about it then maybe next time you throw a better pitch.