Snyder's Soapbox: No one gets to decide what is 'real' baseball

How did bunting and small ball become more 'real' than home runs?

Sep 15, 2026 at 9:30 am ET • 2 min read

Welcome to Snyder's Soapbox! Here, I pontificate about matters related to Major League Baseball on a weekly basis. Some of the topics will be pressing matters, some might seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and most will be somewhere in between. The good thing about this website is that it's free, and you are allowed to click away. If you stay, you'll get smarter, though. That's a money-back guarantee. Let's get to it.

Have you ever heard anyone say something along the lines of "that's real baseball?" You surely have. It's always accompanied with an air of smugness. 

Generally speaking, we're going to hear this from an older generation that loves to lament how much worse today's players are than past generations (note: This is absurdly false; players are better than ever). I always find it weird that people watch things that they claim to hate, but I can't prevent it. I can shame them for the whining, though, so we're going to continue on with this discussion.

You'll also generally hear this from people who love to talk about how much they love small ball and hate maximalist things like pitchers throwing as hard as they can or players swinging for the fences. I guess there's something more honorable about a single, bunt and single to score one run as opposed to just one swing putting one over the fence for a home run? Balderdash. Gimme crooked numbers that come with multi-run home runs any day instead of watching guys bunt. 

Maybe I could turn things around here and start saying "real baseball" is hitting three-run home runs instead of playing for one run with the most boring play in all of baseball, the sacrifice bunt. Hell yes I'm anti-bunt (there are some exceptions where I'm willing to accept it, even if I don't like it, such as having runners on first and second with no out and a weak hitter at the plate in a close game). Bunting is not only boring, but you're giving the defense one of your 27 precious outs. Why give outs away? Swing the damn bat. 

Oh, right, that's "real baseball." 

Something that I find really odd is how so many of these older fans who claim to love small ball and lament how much more power hitting has taken focus these days also worship Babe Ruth. The Babe mainstreamed home runs, making them the coolest play in the sport. He hit 714 of them compared to 114 sac bunts in his career. Did he not play "real baseball?" Hmmm ... 

This isn't unique to baseball, of course. There are plenty of football people who will claim real football isn't played indoors and that cold weather and even snow is "football weather." I went to the Browns-Bears game last December with a wind chill of -17 and I gotta say, I'd have been just fine if we were in a dome instead of having to wear five layers of clothing. 

They used to play real basketball, too, when teams weren't so reliant on three-pointers, right? 

Yawn. 

Like the sport you are watching or don't, whatever. That's your prerogative. Just don't go around trying to dictate the proper way to play the game. You don't get to decide that. 

Now, I'm off to watch some real baseball, preferably with a bunch of bombs and no bunting.