Blue Jays: There’s no going back on bat flipping in Toronto

Randal Grichuk caused a stir the other day with some comments about bat flipping. I hate to tell ya Randy, but we’ve made our choice in Toronto already.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a bit of an “old school” baseball guy, meaning that I’m not a fan of stuff like defensive shifts, “openers”, and stuff like that, even if I can see the logic. Maybe I’m just getting old and unreceptive to change.

On that note, there’s a part of me that had to laugh and nod my head when I saw a tweet from Randal Grichuk the other day about “bat flipping”. Like the old-man side of me, Grichuk expressed that he’s not a fan, and that people should “act like they’ve been there before”. A lot of the time I would silently approve, but the bat-flip is a different story for Blue Jays.

And I hate to tell ya Mr. Grichuk, but we’ve already made up our minds on this issue in Canada.

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I’m sure there was a surly curmudgeon somewhere who cursed when he saw it happen, but for the rest of us that witnessed Jose Bautista‘s epic home run against the Rangers in 2015, we lost our collective minds. In the heat of the moment, the bat-flip was the perfect punctuation point in the climax of that series, even if it’s the type of thing I’d normally disapprove of.

I realize there’s a difference between a franchise-changing home run and doing it in a regular season game, but as Blue Jays fans we’re no longer allowed to oppose the idea at all as far as I’m concerned. Maybe I’m being biased here, but Bautista’s might be the most notable bat-flip of all-time, and definitely stands that way north of the border. I realize Grichuk wasn’t around back then, but he’s going to be associated with it because of the jersey he wears, as many of you have no doubt witnessed on social media.

At the end of the day, the whole debate of “new school” vs. “old school” thinking in baseball is pretty tired, but it’s probably not going to go away any time soon. “America’s past-time” is chock-full of tradition, and there are always going to be those who resist change of any kind, and want to see the game played “the right way”. On the other hand, every generation makes their own rules, and these aren’t your Grandfather’s buddies on big league diamonds these days.

As far as Grichuk is concerned, if he paid any attention to the reaction to his comments on social media, I’m sure he was overwhelmingly reminded of the history behind the bat-flip in Toronto, and how his predecessor in right field more or less took away his ability to gripe about it.