Bat flip

A Bat flip occurs when a batter, after hitting a no-doubt homer, preferably at a crucial moment of an important game, throws his bat in the air in a gesture of celebration, instead of simply depositing it on the ground and starting his trot around the bases. The bat flip was long considered an unacceptable form of taunting, as the sportsmanlike thing to do was to pretend that nothing special had happened, not celebrating until after the batter's turn around the bases had been completed. Thus a bat flip would often result in the offending batter or one of his teammates being beaned in short order.

The bat flip that changed attitudes was that of Jose Bautista, after he hit a go-ahead homer for the Toronto Blue Jays off Sam Dyson of the Texas Rangers in the 7th inning of Game 5 of the 2015 ALDS. His gesture became a cultural meme, and while it was celebrated around Toronto, many traditionalists (and the Rangers) claimed that it showed a lack of respect for the opposition. The Rangers retaliated the next year, when 2B Rougned Odor punched Bautista in the jaw to show him the error of his ways. That said, Bautista won the broader cultural debate, as bat flipping became much more common after this, and is now generally seen as a harmless way to celebrate, and one that shows the players are actual human beings with emotions, and not just robots executing a script put together by the analytics staff.

Further reading

• Paul Casella: "Here are 40 phenomenal bat flips from 2020", mlb.com, December 13, 2020. [1]

Related Sites

• Most Epic Bat Flips in History