Last week, White Sox management took an enormous step in making sure that fun is recognized as a thing of the past in the Chicago clubhouse. General Manager Ken Williams threatened to levy a fine on pitcher Mark Buehrle for sliding on the tarp during a rain delay and also passed along the word from owner Jerry Reinsdorf that catcher A.J. Pierzynski and Joe Crede were to cut their hair.

While I understand that losing a pitcher who has won 32 games over the last two seasons would be devastating to the Sox, how ridiculously uncoordinated do you have to be to hurt yourself sliding on a tarp? I get the fact that it is wet and Buerhle could slip and tear or break something, but I think there was a time when we were all 10 years old and had a little contraption called a slip and slide. Can anyone ever remember someone getting seriously hurt on a slip and slide? And that was a bunch of kids horsing around, not a 27 year old professional athlete. One would hope that he could handle himself on the wet surface.

Injury aside, Williams is missing a very key point behind Buehrle’s antics. The rain delay slip-and-slide is a time-honored tradition in professional baseball. The 162 game season is a long one, and rain delays have to rank right up there as some of the most boring times during that span. When I look at baseball, I try to keep one thing in mind; if it occurred in the movie Bull Durham, then it is an integral part of the game. Interviews conducted entirely in clichés? Check. Grizzled power-hitting catchers that are willing to accept payment around the poverty line to keep playing the game they love? Check. Post game drinking and the occasional groupie? Check. SLIP-AND-SLIDE? Check.

Now don't get me wrong, the mandate forcing Pierzynski to cut his hair comes as some of the best news in this early season, but forcing Crede, who originally grew his hair out last season when the team began winning, to cut his locks is darn near sacrilegious. It is no secret that baseball players are the most superstitious human beings on earth, so what could possibly be going through Reinsdorf’s greed-filled head?

Wade Boggs famously ate the same fried chicken meal before each game. Back in Nomar Garciaparra’s glory days (does anyone remember that two year span anymore?) he looked like he practically had one of the most glaring cases of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in recorded history as he continually ran up and down stairs, checked his batting gloves, tapped his toes, etc. For the final proof, one need only bring up the time-tested strategy of using Bull Durham. Fireballer Nuke LaLoosh embraced celibacy on a road trip and suddenly could not lose. When he came back, there was only one option, remain that way around the ever-seductive Annie or risk breaking the streak. That brings us to our the most important lesson from Bull Durham. Hardcore superstitions that are recognized no matter how crazy they seem? Check and check.

I have only one message for Mr. Reinsdorf and Kenny Williams. Please stop trying to take the fun out of baseball and for the sake of your team’s chances to repeat as World Champions, do not ever make a player change something that he has been successful with. Because, as everyone knows, you never, EVER mess with a  streak.

Bull Durham is by far the greatest baseball movie of all time. If you disagree Phil will be happy to inform you of the millions of reasons why.

You can reach him at phil.mattingly@atomicsportsmedia.com.