Major League Baseball is viewed as one of the more traditional sports, along with golf, where an expected standard developed over 150 years of history. But things change over time, and in recent years, there’s been a concerted effort to allow players to show more personality, be more demonstrative, and celebrate their success.
Some pitchers now demonstrably react after striking out opposing hitters, to varying degrees. Mets reliever Jefry Yan being the most prominent example. Many hitters are now more willing to wear their emotions on their sleeve, in moments big and small.
How you feel about this can relate to your age, the generation you grew up watching, or willingness to change with the times. But there are celebrations, and then there are celebrations. Monday night, in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series between the Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Guardians, we had the latter.
Needing a win to get to the World Series, the Rays were up 3-1 in the bottom of the seventh inning, facing Cleveland’s best reliever, Cade Smith. Caminero came up with a runner at first and nobody out, crushing a line drive to left that hit the foul pole for a two-run homer.
A huge moment for the 23-year-old second-year player that put his team one step closer to a championship. And Caminero enjoyed it. Really, really enjoyed it.
At nearly 39 seconds, it was the second-slowest home run trot in the Statcast tracking era, per MLB.com’s Sarah Lang. 39 seconds! To run the bases. And it’s not just Caminero.
In game two of the NLCS between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers, catcher William Contreras hit a game-tying home run in the bottom of the fifth and, again, admired it and took an extraordinary amount of time to get around the bases.
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Reactions to Caminero’s example were, well, mixed, to say the least.
ESPN’s Jeff Passan posted the video on X, “This is how you celebrate a home run in a game that could send you to the World Series. Junior Caminero is ready.”
Other fans called it a “disgrace,” comparing it to how Derek Jeter would celebrate a big homer. One fan wrote, “Junior Caminero is a disgrace to the game of baseball. Imagine someone on the Yankees acting like this in a big playoff game. Imagine playing in the same division as Derek Jeter and acting this classless. There’s an argument that the Rays should bench Caminero. This isn’t how you act.”
Another had a similar sentiment, calling it a “slap in the face” to baseball.
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“An absolute disgrace to baseball and everything this great game stands for! I first saw this video when Fry Daddy posted it, and I still can’t believe what I witnessed. Congratulations to both teams—one has a chance to win its first World Series, and that’s awesome. But what he did was an embarrassment, a complete disgrace, and a slap in the face to the game I love.”
No other sport has the number of “unwritten” rules that baseball has traditionally had in place. Don’t show up the other team being one of them. But the celebrations this postseason raise the question, should those “rules” exist in the first place?
There are two valid sides to it; one says that baseball is about tradition and big celebrations are against the tradition of celebrating like you’ve been there before. The other is that players showing their personalities and emotions is important to modernize the game and bring in fans who enjoy seeing how much the moment means. Even Shohei Ohtani, who is rarely demonstrative, had a big celebration after hitting a home run in game four of the NLCS.
Cade Smith, the closer who gave up the homer to Caminero, was asked his thoughts about the celebration after the game and had a magnanimous answer, saying, “It’s not my style but I guess if I don’t like it, I shouldn’t give up home runs.”
Videos of Caminero’s home-run, uh, walking trot, exploded on social media, and isn’t that what MLB wants? Fans who don’t normally see baseball to get the passion and energy and excitement that the postseason brings? On the other hand, though, is that the best example of it?
Though, again, if you’re going to celebrate anything, a huge home run to give your team a stronger chance to reach the World Series is probably the time to do it. Caminero and Contreras will have a chance to celebrate in the actual World Series when it starts on Friday. Just imagine if one of them hits a walk-off homer.