Line between blame and accountability

Published 1:07 pm Friday, April 29, 2016

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Baseball is just different. OK? It just is. Different rules.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Mostly, the unwritten ones.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The latest example is the semi-firestorm that erupted last weekend after LSU’s Paul Mainieri got annoyed by a 2-1 loss to Mississippi State.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“Basically, we lost the game because our first baseman didn’t keep his foot on the base on a routine play, a perfect throw,” Mainieri told the media after the game. “That ends up being the winning run. I’ve always worried about our defense, especially in the infield. These two games it’s really come back to bite us. In SEC games, there’s no margin for error.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Mainieri didn’t mention anybody by name.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But he didn’t have to. It wasn’t a secret. Greg Deichmann was at first base, although for some reason his foot wasn’t planted atop it when that routine throw came, which it turns out is crucial to get the “out” called. The Mississippi State runner who got the gift base eventually scored the deciding run.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So did Mainieri throw a poor, innocent kid under the bus?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But no matter. It seems to be OK in college baseball.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s almost encouraged.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Compared to football and basketball, baseball coaches are veritable fountains of blunt honesty. On a selfish note, that’s why they’re so much more fun for the media to cover.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Could Les Miles get away with similar individual-specific comments?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Probably not.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And he wouldn’t dare try it.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But he coaches football.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Different sport. Different rules.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Publicly criticizing a quarterback will cost you your courtesy car.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">I don’t know who made those unwritten rules, but they’re there.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">If what Mainieri did was “throwing a pla</span><span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">yer under the bus,” then he’s got plenty of company.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Almost every college baseball coach does it as some point.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s accepted.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s their game.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Skip Bertman did it all the time at LSU. Other coaches, too.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s just the way baseball is.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">To not do it would be to ignore the 500-pound gorilla in the postgame interview session.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s hard to hide in baseball.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s the most individual of all the team sports.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">You can’t lay low like an offensive lineman. Nobody is anonymous. Everybody gets a turn front and center, squarely in the spotlight’s glare.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">To one degree or another, there’s a hero and a goat on virtually play.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">In baseball one guy pitches. Every play. One guy hits (or doesn’t). One guy fields a ball. Maybe throws it. Another is supposed to catch it, preferably with his foot atop the bag.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There are a lot of subtleties going on. But once a play starts, it doesn’t take a rocket science to figure out what’s going on and who has the chance to make the play.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Somebody is accountable.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Football?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">You never know, really, not in that hectic mishmash.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Oh, you may think you know, particularly with instant replay.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But even the coaches, who at least know what is SUPPOSED to happen, claim they have to watch tape all day Sunday before sorting out what really transpired and who gets the credit/blame.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Baseball, not so much.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The best hitters walk back to the dugout, a failure, 70 percent of the time (with every eye in the stadium following them). A pitcher who succeeds 70 percent of the time is getting rocked sideways.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So you better have thick skin, particularly if you’re playing at a high-profile place like LSU where the interest is intense.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Or try another sport.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The comments Mainieri made last week about the error at first base lit up the internet, particularly the Twittersphere division, mostly with accusations of — wait for it — throwing a player under the bus.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Mainieri, after first wondering what all the fuss was about, eventually got pretty defensive about it.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“About once a year, I have to learn my lesson the hard way,” he told the media the next day. “I try to be very transparent with (media).</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“Then what happens is people criticize you for that because they interpret that as you’re blaming somebody. I’m not blaming anybody. The point I was making was the margin for error is so small in these games. Something as small as a first baseman taking his foot off the bag too early can lead towards a loss. I wasn’t throwing Greg (Deichmann) under the bus.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He hinted that maybe he should be more guarded with his future postgame comments to the media.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That would be a shame. Mainieri is easily the most open, honest and accessible among LSU’s coaches. But that’s probably true of the baseball coach at most schools.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Mainieri’s only real mistake is in giving a big hoot what Twitter and the message boards think about it.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But the backlash was just another example of the social media world we live in.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">If Mainieri doesn’t think he did anything wrong — and he didn’t — then he should just ignore the criticism.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Otherwise, you start to wonder who’s really being thin-skinned in the whole thing.</span>

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<p class="p1">Follow Scooter Hobbs on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ScooterAmPress">https://twitter.com/ScooterAmPress</a>