Sliding Into Home deserves the credit for this one. Here is a video of the incident that took place between Alex Rodriguez and Dallas Braden that ended in Braden erupting at A-Rod because he walked across the back of the mound on his way back to first base on a foul ball.
Another funny thing about this incident is Mike Axisa’s commentary of it over at River Ave Blues . Here is what Axisa said:
“To be quite frank, this whole mound issue is just a bit of nonsense. You’re talking about an old-school, unwritten rule that was enforced with a pitch to the ribs a lifetime ago. If it were a FOX broadcast, Tim McCarver would be talking about the great Bob Gibson, who never stood for such a thing and didn’t need pitch counts and was so manly that the U.S. had 48 states when he started his career and 50 when it ended. It’s that outdated.”
And then, like clockwork, McCarver unleashed this gem :
“The first person that I ever heard refer to the mound as his office was Gibson,” McCarver said, referring to his former teammate, Hall-of-Famer Bob Gibson. “And (Steve) Carlton picked that up.
“In fact, when Pete Rose would make an out—particularly on a flyball unless it was the third out of an an inning—he would intentionally run over the back of the mound on his way back to the dugout if the dugout was on the third-base side. He would intimidate rookie pitchers in that regard.
“He tried that once with Gibson in the mid-60s and Gibson threw at him the next time up. Pete spat at him. And the next one was a lot closer. Pete didn’t spit the second time.”
Do you think McCarver goes a day without bringing up Bob Gibson?
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