Oakland pitcher Dallas Braden got awfully upset at Alex Rodriguez for cutting across the diamond and the pitcher’s mound to get back to first following a foul ball. Is this a case of making a big deal out of nothing?

Unwritten rules seem rather silly on the surface. It’s really all in the terminology, however, because we’re talking about etiquette here, not the legality of something.  Is A-Rod doing anything wrong? Technically no. Is he a jerk? Most likely.

One thing that really stands out were his comments following the incident. “(Braden) just told me to get off his mound. I was a little surprised. I’d never quite heard that. Especially from a guy that has a handful of wins in his career … I thought it was pretty funny actually.”

Check out The Baseball Codes, the name of both the book and website created by Jason Turbow. He delves a lot deeper into these unwritten rules, and makes some nice points about A-Rod:

Alex Rodriguez is one of two types of players: A guy who’s profoundly ignorant of much of the Code, or a guy who actively disdains it. This is someone who has been caught peeking at catchers’ signs, and who, as a baserunner, tries to distract fielders when they’re camped under fly balls.

Braden’s motivation was strictly territorial. He made the point himself after the game, saying, “I don’t care if I’m Cy Young or the 25th man on a roster; if I’ve got the ball in my hand and I’m out there on that mound, that’s not your mound.”

And he’s right. The stature of those who hold real estate is less important than the fact that they hold it at all. That Braden went so far as to equate A-Rod’s move not just with personal disrespect, but disrespect for the entire A’s organization, also says a lot. It probably wasn’t even intentional, but Braden just gave his team the best pep talk it could ever hope for: We’re every bit as good as the Yankees, and they will not walk over us, literally or figuratively.

I might have a problem with a young hothead trying to intimidate a star, but that isn’t this. Braden wants only what’s rightfully his, and he has every right to do so.