Most likely, it is as old as the law of the jungle.

Someone probably scribbled it on ancient papaya with one of those really official feather ink pens.

And it could be encased in glass in some national museum that you cannot probably get into at the moment (cough, cough).

They are the official, unwritten Rules of Baseball.

And I say official and unwritten with the same intent as I used ‘most likely,’ ‘probably’ and ‘could be’ – because the unwritten Rules of Baseball just don’t exist. Like Captain Barbossa says in “Pirates of the Caribbean,” their more what you would call guidelines.

As such, there is no punishment or fine for breaking them, except for those called for the in unwritten Rules of Baseball guidebook, which no one has ever seen, but referred to often.

And based on his latest actions, Los Angeles Dodgers rookie sensation Yasiel Puig is apparently getting dangerously close to setting off the unsounding alarm. The elders may be gathering and the keeper of the code will be looking up just how to deal with him.

Because you just can’t show boat like that. You can’t hit a deep ball, flip your bat, throw up your hands like you’re in a club and watch it like a firework on Independence Day.

Well, you can if you’re Puig and you can make up the time and stretch what you thought was a home run but hit the fence into a triple. And then you can celebrate that like someone who just drove in the go-ahead run in Game 7 of the World Series.

Except it was Game 3 of the NLCS and the Dodgers were down 0-2. And Puig didn’t have a hit in the series.

Then again, there was more energy in that moment than any other so far in the postseason, outside perhaps of David Ortiz’ grand slam on Sunday night that gave the Boston Red Sox new life in their ALCS matchup with the Detroit Tigers.

And if there is something that is and has been sorely lacking in baseball, compared to so many other sports, it’s the massive star power, that excitement, that ability that brings oohs and aahs each game.

As I had said before, we’ve spent way too much time talking about a relief pitcher in his early 40s this summer. Mariano Rivera has been great, and was one of the greatest players of the past couple decades. Notice the has and was in that last sentence? Because it’s in the past, which is the point: the game is stuck in the past.

Everything good and bad about baseball is intrinsically connected to the past. Past players, historic numbers and legends born long ago, grainy images giving us a link to our fathers heroes.

Case in point: one of the main stories on SportsCenter and ESPN today? The 25^thanniversary of the Kirk Gibson Home Run in the 1988 World Series. While no doubt a legendary moment in the game, with an incredible call from another legend, Vin Scully, it’s a lead story? Baseball is having some trouble here finding a modern narrative.

While other sports, like the NFL and NBA honor the past, they put great emphasis on the present and future. And because baseball prides itself so much on history, when something like PEDs comes along, it causes such a tremendous uproar because it would create a space-time continuum shift the likes of which would make Doc Brown squirm in his lab coat.

How can we possibly compare all of these numbers we’ve pointed to and prided ourselves on if we don’t know which ones are legitimate? Do we go back and asterisk the books? Do we have eras? What do we do? It’s been a decade long headache.

Meanwhile, the NFL and NBA, which have similar, yet not as publicized issues with PEDs, escape relatively unscathed, partly due to the fact they have not propped up their historical numbers as a thread. The games evolved. The three-point line was invented. It moved back. New rules came into play that increased or decreased scoring. The field goal posts moved to the back of the end zone and headshots were addressed. They are dealing with player safety.

But in baseball, they’ve always been slower to adopt the game to the changing of times. It’s grand ties to history remain both its greatest asset and curse.

Which is why it was strange to hear so much today on TV and radio about Puig and how he carried on last night – and how he carries himself. Many of the old guard talk about doing things the right way, they brought up his struggles with the Dodgers and giving maximum effort, and partying with LeBron James and hanging out with Jay-Z.

They don’t want that, not from a rookie. It messes with those unwritten rules of baseball. But the game might need that if it wants to grow and gain new fans or earn lost fans back.

Did Puig look foolish last night? Oh, most definitely. He embarrassed himself by watching his hit and then over-celebrating on third base. It tends to ruffle less feathers when our athletes act a bit more professional, possibly because in our daily lives, we have to act a bit more professional.

Can you imagine sprinting around the office celebrating every time you closed a deal, or came in early on a timeline? Our frame of reference dictates a lot of that discussion.

Yet I can’t forget what I heard my Dad say when I was a little boy, watching the Lakers with him in the mid-1980s, as Magic Johnson led Showtime. It was fast, up-tempo and exciting. You never knew what was going to happen.

“I work hard all day, every day, doing the same things,” he said. “And that’s fine. But I’d like to get a little excited watching basketball and not know what they’re going to do.”

And some people hated that style of play. They didn’t like all the flash, just wanted the classic substance they grew up with and were used to. Totally a matter of opinion. But Magic wasn’t breaking any unwritten rules with no-look passes and a faster tempo. Just speaking to a different crowd.

There’s room for both.

Which is why baseball needs Yasiel Puig just as much as they do retaliation plunking and a hundred players who, as Carlos Beltran said, pretend like it was an accident when they hit a home run so to not give the pitcher motivation. It can all work in baseball – there’s room for everyone.

Just have to see if those unwritten rules have room for a section on it.

Because it might be just as much fun to talk about Puig’s antics as it is for someone else to watch Puig do it so dramatically, so recklessly.

Now, who keeps the code, anyway?