Sometimes baseball players don’t have to say a word to make their point.
One night after St. Louis Cardinals rookie Hancel Rincon was ordered by home-plate umpire Doug Eddings to straighten his tilted cap during his Major League debut, his teammates showed up at Coors Field Saturday wearing theirs the same way.
Tilted.
Most of the Cardinals wore their caps cocked to the side during pregame warmups before their second game against the Colorado Rockies. Many kept them that way in the dugout, and some St. Louis players even tilted their batting helmets after reaching base.
And this wasn’t strictly a Cardinals protest.
Several Rockies players joined in and wore their caps tilted before the game as well.
No press conference was necessary.
The message was pretty clear.
The unusual controversy started Friday night when Rincon, a 24-year-old right-hander from the Dominican Republic, came out of the Cardinals bullpen in the sixth inning to make his Major League debut.
Think about that for a second.
A Dominican kid spends his entire baseball life trying to reach the Major Leagues. He finally gets the call. He walks onto a Major League mound for the first time at Coors Field.
And before his debut inning is finished, the conversation becomes about how he’s wearing his hat.
Rincon wore his cap tilted slightly toward the left, something he had done while pitching before reaching the Majors.
Eddings ordered him to straighten it.
Rincon complied.
“I had no idea why he told me to do it,” Rincon later said through an interpreter. “It’s fine.”
His manager didn’t think it was fine.
Oliver Marmol confronted Eddings during a subsequent pitching change and eventually was ejected. After the game, Marmol explained exactly why the interaction bothered him.
“He took it upon himself to tell our rookie pitcher the kid’s ‘not going to wear his hat on my field that way,’” Marmol said.
Then Marmol introduced something important into the conversation.
“You got Dontrelle Willis, CC Sabathia, Pedro Strop—plenty of guys that have worn it way more tilted,” he continued. “I have an issue with that. That’s just a power-hungry move, in my opinion.”
Marmol wasn’t reaching for random names.
Willis wore his cap tilted throughout one of the most recognizable pitching careers of the 2000s. Sabathia did it while becoming a six-time All-Star, Cy Young Award winner and World Series champion. Dominican reliever Pedro Strop wore his hat noticeably crooked throughout a Major League career that lasted more than a decade.
Baseball survived just fine.
More importantly, Eddings acknowledged afterward that Rincon wasn’t actually violating an MLB rule.
“It’s not,” Eddings said when asked whether wearing the cap that way violated a rule. “I guess it’s a little unwritten rule.”
There’s that phrase again.
Unwritten rules.
Baseball has spent generations using those two words to police everything from bat flips and home-run celebrations to how quickly a hitter rounds the bases and, apparently, how a Dominican rookie wears his hat.
That’s where this stops being merely a funny baseball story.
There is no evidence that Eddings’ directive was racially motivated, and it would be irresponsible to claim otherwise.
But race and culture cannot simply be dismissed from the larger conversation either.
For generations, Major League Baseball has depended heavily upon Black and Latino talent while sometimes struggling with how comfortably those players are allowed to bring their personalities and cultural identities onto the field.
The sport celebrated Rickey Henderson while occasionally bristling at his swagger.
It loved the talent of players who came from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and throughout Latin America while repeatedly debating whether their celebrations showed sufficient “respect for the game.”
Black players heard the same conversations about chains, uniforms, home-run trots and emotional expression.
Different generations. Same underlying question.
Who gets to decide what a Major League Baseball player is supposed to look like?
That’s why what happened to Rincon deserves more thought than simply laughing about a crooked hat.
MLB’s uniform rules contain restrictions involving things that can legitimately affect competition or distract opponents. But there is no rule requiring a pitcher to position the brim of his cap perfectly straight.
Eddings himself acknowledged that.
He nevertheless gave Rincon a directive to change it.
Eddings initially said Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman had asked, “Hey, can he wear his hat like that?” and that the question prompted him to address Rincon.
There was another twist Saturday.
Goodman denied complaining about Rincon’s cap.
“I never once mentioned the hat,” Goodman told MLB.com.
That discrepancy only made Marmol’s frustration more understandable.
And remember, this was happening during Rincon’s first inning as a Major Leaguer.
After straightening his cap, Rincon retired Goodman on a liner before allowing a triple to TJ Rumfield, an inside-the-park home run to Cole Carrigg and a single to Connor Norby. He was removed for Justin Bruihl after recording one out and being charged with three runs.
Marmol continued confronting Eddings during the pitching change. Bruihl was assessed a pitch-clock violation during the dispute, and Marmol was eventually tossed.
St. Louis still got the last word on the scoreboard.
The Cardinals rallied from behind in the ninth when Iván Herrera crushed a three-run homer to center field, completing a 7-6 comeback victory.
Then they came back Saturday and got the last word on the hat.
José Fermín, Jordan Walker and numerous other Cardinals were photographed with their caps deliberately tilted. Players continued the gesture throughout the game, and some Rockies joined them.
Rincon and Eddings were also seen speaking briefly on the field before Saturday’s game, with reports indicating that Eddings appeared to apologize.
Maybe that’s where this particular incident ends.
But the larger discussion shouldn’t.
As someone who played this game and has spent years studying and writing about Black baseball history, I’ve always believed baseball is at its best when the uniform creates unity without erasing individuality.
Jackie Robinson didn’t integrate Major League Baseball so every player who came behind him could be expected to express himself exactly the same way.
Roberto Clemente didn’t carry the pride of Puerto Rico into the Major Leagues for Latino players to leave their culture at the clubhouse door.
Today’s game is global.
Its players come from Atlanta and Alabama, Santo Domingo and San Pedro de Macorís, San Juan and Caracas, Tokyo and Seoul.
They aren’t all going to look the same.
They aren’t supposed to.
There are legitimate reasons for umpires to regulate equipment. If something creates a competitive advantage, presents a safety issue or actually violates the rulebook, address it.
But personal style shouldn’t automatically become insubordination simply because somebody with authority doesn’t like how it looks.
And perhaps that’s why the Cardinals’ response was so effective.
They didn’t release some lengthy statement.
They didn’t turn it into a campaign.
They just tilted their hats.
Then the other team started doing it too.
A day earlier, one Dominican rookie had been told his cap needed to be straight.
Twenty-four hours later, Major League players throughout Coors Field were wearing theirs crooked.
Baseball has always had its unwritten rules.
Saturday, the players wrote one of their own.