Zip The Code

You know what really needs a fastball stuck in its ear?

The Code.

You know what really needs to get knocked down and scared straight?

The Code, baseball’s unwritten rule that players must engage in dangerous and irresponsible behavior to win the respect of their compatriots.

Yep, junior high without the acne.

This week The Code rode again, leading to the suspension or fining of seven Angels after a night with the Texas Rangers that resembled not a pennant race, but fourth-period recess.

The Rangers hit the Angels with pitches. The Angels hit the Rangers. The Rangers hit the Angels. The Angels attacked the Rangers.

Am not. Am too.

Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah.

By the time it ended Wednesday, benches and bullpens and all common sense had been emptied.

A day later, the Angels took the field without Manager Mike Scioscia, second baseman Adam Kennedy and pitcher Kevin Gregg, each docked at least three games.

This weekend, bench coach Ron Roenicke will be sent off for a game.

Sometime soon, pitcher Brendan Donnelly will also disappear for four games after his appeal is denied.

Two others, John Lackey and Juan Rivera, will be lighter in the wallet after being fined.

The game’s best manager, one of the team’s veteran leaders, two important relievers, and a bench coach all disappearing along with the team’s championship hopes.

Then why were most of them smiling?

“That’s what this game is all about,” Lackey said Thursday, sounding like John Wayne in sanitaries. “Getting the respect of your teammates.”

That’s what this game is all about?

Hurling hardballs at ribs? Throwing punches at pitchers? Risking injury and suspension and perhaps even October for the sake of camaraderie?

Shouldn’t just playing hard be enough?

I know one guy who agrees with me.

“I cannot begin to express my displeasure over the course of these events,” Scioscia said.

From the bottom of a sweaty pile to the edge of a dugout seat, Scioscia has seen both sides of brawls, and tried to build an Angel culture that resists them.

Before Wednesday’s game with the Rangers, with tempers heating between the two teams, Scioscia openly warned his club that he did not approve of retaliation baseball.

After his team brawled anyway, Scioscia was apparently furious, scolding them in a postgame meeting that apparently included trash being dumped out of a wastebasket and strewn across the floor.

“I don’t believe in retaliation, there is no place for it,” he said.

But The Code has been around longer than him. The Code is bigger than him.

Scioscia may be the most powerful manager in baseball, and The Code is even stronger than him.

“When I’m done playing, I want the guys I played with to say I was a good teammate,” Lackey said. “Nobody remembers stats or how you did. It’s all about whether you are a good teammate.”

This is why Lackey risked injury to leave the dugout and enter a scuffle that did not directly involve him.

This is why Kennedy risked injury to charge the mound and fight a pitcher he barely knew.

Said Kennedy: “I really didn’t have a choice.”

Said Lackey: “If one of your best friends got hit, wouldn’t you want to go hit somebody? I wouldn’t want to be that guy standing in the dugout.”

Mo Vaughn’s Angels career essentially ended several years ago after he was the only guy standing in the dugout during a brawl with the Cleveland Indians.

The Code is that real. The Code is that enduring.

This is why mere mortal players can’t be expected to end it. This is why only the commissioner’s office can.

Baseball needs to start treating on-field violence like the other major sports treat it.

Zero tolerance. Immediate suspensions.

Don’t just throw them out of the game, boot them out of the dugout.

The first bad blood between the Angels and Rangers was spilled Aug. 6 when Adam Eaton threw a first-inning pitch behind the back of Rivera after Garret Anderson had tagged Eaton for a three-run homer.

Eaton was immediately ejected and fined. But if he were an NBA player taking a swing at another player, he would have been suspended.

And Scioscia, who was equally upset with baseball officials, says if Eaton were suspended, none of the ensuing problems would have occurred.

“You can’t ask a team not to retaliate, and then not back us up,” Scioscia said.

Suspend the pitcher who intentionally hits the batter. Suspend the batter who goes after the pitcher.

Suspend anyone who takes one step out of the dugout to help the batter or the pitcher.

And, please, please, suspend any player who runs in from the bullpen to join a fight.

Is there a more foolish sight in sports than a bunch of guys jogging in orderly fashion to join a melee?

Well, yes. Sillier still is when pitchers from adjoining bullpens run to the center of the field, jogging side by side, fighting only when they reach the mound.

In the NBA, you are docked at least one game if you take one step off the bench during a fight.

In major league baseball, you can run 200 yards and nobody cares?

Like we said, junior high without the acne.

The entire plunk-retaliation-brawl deal would be considered bush league except, well, there is one place where this behavior is not accepted.

Yep, the bush leagues.

If you leave the dugout or the bullpen for a fight in a minor league game, you are immediately ejected or suspended.

The Code isn’t watching. The Code doesn’t care.

Do baseball executives care? Or do they have their own code?

Said Donnelly of the brawl: “This sort of thing has been going on as long as baseball has been going on ... and how long has that been?”

Long enough.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Eight men out

Suspensions stemming from ninth-inning fight between the Angels and Texas on Wednesday (Story, D4):

*--* ANGELS Position Games Kevin Gregg Pitcher Four Brendan Donnelly Pitcher Four Adam Kennedy 2nd base Four Mike Scioscia Manager Three Ron Roenicke Coach One

*--*

*--* RANGERS Position Games Scott Feldman Pitcher Six Vicente Padilla Pitcher Five Buck Showalter Manager Four

*--*

Note: Angels John Lackey (P), Juan Rivera (OF) were fined an undisclosed amount.