COLUMN: The baseball gods do exist!

Whatever you choose to call it—the baseball gods, karma, reciprocity—it exists.

Up 24-3 in the consolation game of this weekend’s Firecracker Tournament, the Missoula Frontiers were forced to forfeit when, with no available substitutes, a player was ejected after coming to the plate with chewing tobacco in his mouth.

The umpiring crew made it known that there was no way the ruling was any kind of rules mix-up.

“We had to do it,” said umpire Dan Rausch, who was on Sunday’s crew. “It’s a youth tournament, and we made it clear that [tobacco] wouldn’t be allowed. American Legion, Babe Ruth, whatever you play, it’s against the rules.”

Never mind the fact that it is against the law for persons under the age of 18 to even possess tobacco—this is a youth baseball program, mind you—the evidence of the baseball gods’ existence is what led up to the player’s ejection. Ahead 20 runs over the Missoula Pioneers, the Frontiers were still stealing bases.

Baseball is one of those games with unwritten rules. You never throw at an opponent’s head. Stepping on the foul line is bad luck. You don’t bunt when you have a comfortable lead (remember the Mexico-Canada fiasco in the World Baseball Classic?) You don’t steal with a big lead.

In baseball, if you don’t follow those unwritten rules, bad things tend to happen to your team. This is the lesson that the Missoula Frontiers can take home with their fourth-place Firecracker finish.

Mission Valley Mariners coach Jami Hanson would not comment on the incident, but Hanson did say that anything of that nature with his program would be handled far before the player reached the field of play.

All this occurred after the Frontiers’ coach, prompted by the umpires, had warned his players once before during the tournament about using tobacco on the field. Perhaps that warning should have been heeded more seriously, especially since the Frontiers only had nine players on the roster for the tournament.

There is a word for that. It is stupidity.

I think it’s safe to assume that we will not see the Frontiers at next year’s Firecracker.