Yasiel Puig is the new Pedro Guerrero

A rare but funny play in baseball is when a batter thinks he's bashed a homer so he stands at the plate posing in celebration of the magnificence of his blast, only to have the ball bounce off the fence back into the field and the hitter suddenly have to start running. Los Angeles Dodger rookie Yasiel Puig, who led the majors this season in bizarre stuff happening, did this during the recent playoff loss to St. Louis. The 245-pound Puig is so fast that he still wound up on third with a stand-up triple. (In the Dodgers' 9-0 loss in the last game of the series, the rightfielder made two errors, tying my career high for a rightfielder.)

When I was young, hitters always made a show of running as soon as they made contact, no matter how certain they were of having hit a homer. It was part of the anti-showoff etiquette of the age. (Also, in baseball, pitchers can throw at your head if they don't like you.) You owed it to your teammates not to take a chance you were wrong, and you weren't supposed to show up your opponents.

A friend of mine once noticed that his cabdriver was Nate "Sweetwater" Clifton, one of the first black NBA players. He asked him if they ever dunked in the early 1950s. Clifton replied that they dunked all the time in practice, but didn't in games because you weren't supposed to "show up" the other team.

To go back about as far as we can on Youtube, here's film of Babe Ruth's record-setting 60th homer of 1927. We know that Babe was pretty fired up at breaking his own record -- in the locker room afterwards he exulted, "Sixty! Count 'em, sixty. Let's see some other son of a bitch top that!" -- but he had immediately started jogging toward first while he watched the ball. 

Even with the most resounding home run of my youth -- Reggie Jackson's 1971 All Star Game blast off a light tower on top of the third deck in Detroit -- Reggie immediately started sauntering toward first base, although the only way that ball was staying in the park was if it hit the Goodyear Blimp. (By one estimate, the ball would have traveled 532 feet if it hadn't hit the lights.)

I'm not sure exactly when the transition to posing happened. Here's a video of Reggie Jackson's three homers in the final game of the 1977 World Series. On his mighty third homer, he still leans in the general direction of first base as he admires the ball's flight. Unlike Puig's triple, Jackson didn't immediately throw his arms up in celebration. So, the long-term trend toward posing was definitely continuing in the 1970s, but even Reggie felt some of the weight of the old ethos at the peak moment of his career in 1977.

By 1983 (e.g., Gary Matthews' playoff homer against the Dodgers) it seems like a corner had been turned, but that's just my recollection. My impression at the time in 1983 was that Matthews' flinging his bat away in a gesture of dominance was something new in baseball (and the announcers' retrospective comments seem to suggest this), but I'm sure it had precedents. (Throwing your bat like that would get you called out in Little League, but it was okay for Matthews.)

My previous memory of a player winding up with a triple after failing to run is Pedro Guerrero during his record-setting June 1985. Guerrero was perhaps the best National League hitter of the era (although his stats don't look like much due to park effects), but the Dodgers wanted him to play third base, where he racked up horrific fielding percentages. When they finally let him go back to playing the easier position of left field, Guerrero immediately set an all-time record for most home runs in the month of June. One homer he didn't hit that month was a 410-foot blast to straightaway center in St. Louis on which he only started to run after it hit the top of the fence.

A popular rhyme was:

Pedro, Pedro, Pedro Guerrero

His brain is as big as a sparrow

From the Associated Press in 2000:

A former major league hitter was acquitted of drug conspiracy charges Tuesday, after his attorney argued that his low IQ prevented him from understanding that he had agreed to a drug deal. 

Federal prosecutors argued that Pedro Guerrero, formerly of the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals, told an undercover agent and an informant that he would guarantee payment for a $200,000 cocaine shipment. 

But Guerrero's lawyer, Milton Hirsch, told the jury that the four-time National League All-Star and co-MVP of the 1981 World Series was duped by his friend, Adan "Tony" Cruz. 

"He really never understood that he was being asked to involve himself in a drug deal," Hirsch said. 

The jury acquitted Guerrero after four hours of deliberation. 

Guerrero, 43, retired from baseball in 1992. Hirsch said he dropped out of sixth grade in his native Dominican Republic, and has an IQ of 70, Hirsch said. The Miami resident can not perform simple tasks, such as writing a check or making a bed, and receives a small weekly allowance from his wife, Hirsch said.

By the way, here's O.J. Simpson's 911 call in which Pedro's name comes up.