Answer:
a baseball tradition
Explanation:
Functionalist theorists are individuals who adopt the functionalist view to explain things around them. This view makes these theorists see the interactions of our world in a systematic way, where several factors come together, each with its function generating a stable, cohesive and efficient system. According to this point of view, a functionalist theorist would justify the baseball pitcher's incentive to "brush back" a batter who homerated on his previous bat as a baseball tradition.
