Don Mattingly on the reaction to Puig and Gomez: “we have to loosen up a bit”

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Don Mattingly was never a showboat as a player. He was about as straight shooting, business-is-business kinds of guys out there. As a manager he still is. I mean, you don’t get the nickname Donnie Baseball for nothing. He’s the epitome of a “baseball guy,” which is a descriptor most people around the game use to describe people who take the game seriously and never ruffle people’s feathers.

But he has a supreme feather-ruffler playing for him in Yasiel Puig. And he’s well-aware of another feather-ruffler in Carlos Gomez. And over the weekend he said something which a lot of other baseball guys should probably listen to: relax, fellas:

“Guys play with emotion, and that can get on your nerves,” said Mattingly. “Gomez plays with a lot of fire, and it rubs people the wrong way. Every team has guys that bug you. It’s just the way it is. Puig is a guy on our team, he draws as much attention as anybody. But it’s a little silly. You can still be respectful of your opponent and carry yourself with class.

“I do think we have to loosen up a bit or there will be more and more times that guys take offense. I’m not talking about the Giants. It’s all around baseball.”

Sure, he’s obviously defending his own guy here, as these comments came the day after Puig and Madison Bumgarner jawed at each other when Bumgarner took offense at a Puig bat flip. But including Gomez in it too suggests that this is something Mattingly believes even when it doesn’t apply just to a Dodgers player.

And he’s right. Looking to take offense at even the most insignificant of deviations from baseball’s conventions of formality is “all around baseball.” I have no idea whether that strain of no-fun-allowed thinking has increased or if it has merely been flushed out into the open by a couple of flamboyant players, but it’s such a drag.

And if someone as conventional as Don Mattingly is saying it, it’s probably worth listening to.

Anthony Rendon fan interaction video looked into by MLB

Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
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OAKLAND, Calif. – Major League Baseball is looking into a video circulating on social media that appears to show Los Angeles Angels third baseman Anthony Rendon grab a fan by the shirt through the bleacher guardrails after Thursday night’s game in Oakland, a league spokesperson said Friday.

Rendon looks to have grabbed the fan’s shirt near his chest through the bars of the railing and exchanged words with him before appearing to take a swipe at the bill of the man’s ballcap and walking into the tunnel.

Angels spokesman Adam Chodzko says the team has no comment. The Angels do not play Friday, but the club expects Rendon to address the video Saturday in the clubhouse before the game against the Oakland Athletics in Oakland.

The video shows the fan, dressed in A’s colors, approach the railing as Rendon turns toward him from the tunnel walkway below. Rendon then appears to grab the man’s shirt and ask him what he just said, accusing the fan of calling him a derogatory term before swiping at his ballcap.

The A’s won the game 2-1.