Manny Machado doesn't need to be defended – but Ken Rosenthal should put in a little effort

The tsk-tsking came early and often after the Padres rooted for the Dodgers on Tuesday night. They evened the five-game series with a win each at Chavez Ravine and hit six home runs en route to a 10-2 victory.

To be clear, there were a lot of things to complain about. Dodgers fans threw baseballs and debris at the Padres outfielders. It delayed the start of the bottom of the seventh inning by at least seven or eight minutes — which is pretty significant when Yu Darvish sits on 69 pitches and offers a rare chance at a full postseason game. Dodgers pitcher Jack Flaherty threw baseballs at Fernando Tatis Jr., which definitely got the Padres excited.

But the next morning, those stories somehow escaped the wrath of one of America's best-known baseball writers, Ken Rosenthal. Rosenthal decided that the point of this drama between two teams that don't exactly like each other was to write about Manny Machado casually throwing a ball toward the Dodgers' dugout.

And to be clear, this story was almost immediately a non-starter because Padres beat writer (and just generally excellent follower, Annie Heilbrunn) found the video of the alleged incident… and, um, judge for yourself:

Which, frankly, makes it simply astounding that, given these facts, one of the greatest baseball writers of our time decided that the mound on which this incident occurred was this one:

The Dodgers have submitted video to Major League Baseball for review, but no one should hold their breath waiting for disciplinary action. Machado's throw hit no one, giving him plausible deniability. Perhaps the bigger question is whether the Dodgers will get revenge against Machado in Game 3 on Tuesday night. At the Padres' home park. Where fans upset over the indefensible behavior of some of their fellow Dodgers on Sunday night are sure to be in an uproar. Good luck with that.

One thing seems clear right now: The Padres aren't just a great team. They're also on the Dodgers' minds. Teams often take on the personality of their leaders. As the leader of the Padres, Machado is willing to engage in behavior that some would consider unseemly, and he makes no apologies for it. The best way for the Dodgers to deal with him is to hit him. And that will be easier said than done.

Machado is far from the Padres' only nuisance. Fernando Tatis Jr. is a smiling, dancing peacock. Jurickson Profar is the boy who pulls the fire alarm at school and then asks, “Who, me?”

In case anyone missed the punch line here: Yes, Ken Rosenthal wrote those words. Somehow both The New York Times and The Athletic have decided that they are entirely appropriate for the situation you can see in Annie Heilbrunn's video above – a video conspicuously missing from the aforementioned article:

Machado is far from the Padres' only nuisance. Fernando Tatis Jr. is a smiling, dancing peacock. Jurickson Profar is the boy who pulls the fire alarm at school and then asks, “Who, me?”

A Ph.D. The candidate could write his doctoral thesis on the bias and racial coding contained in these words. The fact that all three players being insulted so snidely in just 33 words are black and brown should not be lost on anyone. Machado goes from team leader to “irritating” because of an unsubstantiated claim, a fiction about a pitch that is reminiscent of every bad thing baseball fans have ever been told about Manny Machado.

And look, you don't have to like him. As a Red Sox fan who lived in Boston from 2007 to 2014, Dustin Pedroia was my favorite player. There was something about the fierce second baseman that, for me, even eclipsed David Ortiz (I know, I'm surprised by this development too). The discourse surrounding Machado and the interruption of a Hall of Fame career for Pedroia was terrible, terrible, and an easy way to portray Machado as a villain.

There were also all the rumors, which Rosenthal rehashed in detail. Dirty slides. Dirty moves to step on the first basemen's feet. No rush. I don't have to rehash it all for you. It's enough to make anyone believe the allegations made against them.

All of the above may be true and it is still incredulous that the action inspired Rosenthal to write this line:

Machado is far from the Padres' only nuisance. Fernando Tatis Jr. is a smiling, dancing peacock. Jurickson Profar is the boy who pulls the fire alarm at school and then asks, “Who, me?”

…was this amazingly routine throw towards the dugout that Dave Roberts didn't even immediately register:

To put it bluntly, Machado deserves more from a sport where he put up borderline Hall of Fame numbers in his 32-year-old season. But let's assume for argument's sake that the throw was terrible. What are these statements about Tatis and Profar anyway? Is there anyone who honestly can't see the problem of calling Tatis a “smiling, dancing peacock” or the blatant implicit bias in talking about left fielder Jurickson Profar having one of the greatest home run rushers managed at all? -time (VIDEO) as “The Boy Who Pulled the Fire Alarm at School?”

Incidentally, now seems to be a good time to contribute relevant knowledge from my daily work. According to Wikipedia, the Fordham Institute is an ideologically conservative education think tank and published this in a 2014 article on discipline in schools, emphasis mine:

We all know that there are real problems with the way discipline is practiced in some American schools today. There are campuses where large numbers of students are suspended or expelled, particularly African American and Latino teenagers, mostly boys. A few years later, these young people will likely end up in America's bloated prison system, causing all sorts of societal suffering in the process, not to mention ruining their own lives. “Zero tolerance” policies – which remove administrators’ discretion and treat all crimes as equally harmful – have arguably made the situation worse.

I wholeheartedly support efforts to improve the way schools deal with these issues. Tips and training on creating a positive school culture and reducing suspensions and expulsions are welcome. I also have no doubt that some of America's 100,000-plus schools discriminate against minority children. I heard Russlynn Ali, former assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education, talk about the district where a black kindergarten student is suspended for pulling a fire alarm while a white 10th grader does the same and gets off with a warning. This is wrong, and I am grateful that students who experience such discriminatory actions can file a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights.

We live in a world where Pete Alonso hits a home run and celebrates it (LIKE HE SHOULD) by hitting the moon:

Meanwhile, Ken Rosenthal laments that Jurickson Profar is favoring us all with one of the best fake home run robberies of all time, with an analogy to a practice that every experienced teacher knows is used in a discriminatory manner. Honestly, what are we even doing here?

These aren't kids who are going to pull a fire alarm and need a slap in the face from Rosenthal or anyone else. These are grown men having fun because they have the greatest job in the history of the world, and we should let them enjoy a game because it brings us all the greatest joy.

If Ken Rosenthal wrote this article before seeing the video of Machado's throw into the dugout, which was based solely on the words of Dodgers players and coaches reeling from a night in which they gave up six home runs at home, He should be embarrassed by this decision. If he wrote this piece after When he sees this video, he should question his own bias in covering baseball.

You're already firing up your comments, so let me be clear: I said what I said.

It is reprehensible to engage in Manny Machado's “sinister snare” after a night where Dodgers fans and players were the only people who did anything that would endanger real MLB players. It feeds the worst fear tendencies in our society. The type that gets five-year-old black and brown boys suspended for pulling a fire alarm while their tenth grade peers of a different race issue a warning. It has no place in the New York Times or Major League Baseball. After all of this, someone owes someone an apology, but that someone certainly isn't Manny Machado.