Barry Zito: Defender of Baseball History

The word that keeps being thrown around since Zito’s plunking of Brewers’ First Baseman Prince Fielder yesterday is “retaliation”. Retaliation for a walk-off home run celebration from LAST YEAR that everyone but the San Francisco Giants seems to have forgotten.

While the celebration from last year was not so much rubbing it in as it was a team with nothing to lose having some fun, the Brewers and Prince Fielder’s actions were the epitome of what the NBA and NFL have already become. A bunch of show-boating clowns that care more about how they look, then how they play.

When Barry Zito’s blazing fast 85 mph fastball hit Fielder in the back, he was not so much defending his teammates, but rather defending MLB’s history and hopefully, the future. Baseball takes pride in being a sport that cares about its’ tradition, and Zito has defended the tradition of baseball to the fullest extent, whether he meant to or not.

I might just be an old school kind of guy, but baseball is basically the only sport we have left where there is no dancing, or obnoxious celebrations after the most minimal of accomplishments. And the Brewers’ antics would have been just the beginning. Had Zito not taken the necessary steps to show Fielder that what he did was inappropriate, we would have break dancing around the bases after a home run in no time.

So before everyone gets on Zito’s back for pointlessly ”retaliating” against a team that was just trying to have some fun, remember the hard nose days of the NFL and NBA, and tell me that it wasn’t warranted.