> against an innocent bystander ... is the complete opposite of morality

It's not an innocent bystander, it's against the team to tell the team to check their member. It's not the philosophical understanding of "morality" it's the practiced version. And the "morality" part is not the message telling the other group to check it's out of line member, it's that there is a thread of character or "morality" in the first place to allow a team (or society) to keep order from within to avoid wider violence/incidents that spill over into adjacent populations and last far longer as seen in other sports

> I'm not sure we're watching the same game

If a pitcher is frustrated at losing and beans a guy for no other apparent reason, then either the batter will charge the pitcher or the star player on the pitchers team will get drilled when he comes up to bat and that'll be the end of it. That what i mean with the "unwritten" rules, to the casual observer it just looks like typical fighting or payback for some random thing like other sports, but there is a "gentleman's code" to it