The ridiculous thing about Bautista's comments regarding the bat flip was that he legitimately made it a Latin thing, saying those players play with more flair, so American fans and players should just accept it.
As someone who has covered winter ball the last four years, the Latin players don't accept any showboating like he did. If he did that during a Dominican winter league game, he wouldn't have made it to first base without the benches clearing. Latin players in Mexico, Venezuela and the Dominican clear the benches over a lot less and they do it often. It's a 2-3 times a week occurrence.
So in reality, what he is saying by "accepting it" is I'm going to do it and we are going to fight over it.
__________________
Check out my two newest books. One covers the life and baseball career of Dots Miller, who was mentored by Honus Wagner as a rookie for the 1909 Pirates, then became a mentor for a young Rogers Hornsby. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CV633PNT The other has 13 short stories of players who were with the Pittsburgh Pirates during the regular season, but never played in a game for the team https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CY574YNS
|