Beanball Nation

[TinCup]

As a follow up to the thread on those "pesky Tigers", found today this article by our boy Ken Rosenthal. There is a nice anecdote from when he was writing for the Sun on a brawl between the O's and the Mariners in '93. Weaver apparently has some specific views on pitchers "retaliating".

The next day, Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer pulled me aside, explaining that former Orioles manager Earl Weaver never wanted his pitchers to engage in beanball exchanges, fearing they would get injured.

In sum, I think Ken hits the nail on the head with this piece. Bob Watson should get a permanent suspension if you ask me as he is the worst when it comes to doling out proper "punishment".

Also, I agree that the beaning thing has taken on a ugly life of its own these days. You have Ozzie in Ch-town saying he'll order his staff to take matter into their own hands. Its all too much drama.

Thoughts?

[byrdz]

Its all too much drama.

Thoughts?

This.

I couldn't agree more that it's stupid that a pitcher risk injuring his hand in a fight or some stupid thing happen to any player while not actually playing the game and with millions of dollars and championships on the line.

More annoying though is I feel like I'm watching a cheesy soap opera when I watch these "fights" happen. First off, they're not even fighting when they know their boys are going to break it up before a real punch is even thrown, so why even start anything? Then all the hold me back, arm raising, taunting that happens afterwords. If you want to really fight let's let them really fight like they do in the NHL, no bench clearing BS. Let them break their hands and ruin their seasons then maybe all the fake tough guy stuff will go away pretty quickly.

Just play the damn game tough guys!

[RShack]

As a follow up to the thread on those "pesky Tigers", found today this article by our boy Ken Rosenthal. There is a nice anecdote from when he was writing for the Sun on a brawl between the O's and the Mariners in '93. Weaver apparently has some specific views on pitchers "retaliating".

In sum, I think Ken hits the nail on the head with this piece. Bob Watson should get a permanent suspension if you ask me as he is the worst when it comes to doling out proper "punishment".

Also, I agree that the beaning thing has taken on a ugly life of its own these days. You have Ozzie in Ch-town saying he'll order his staff to take matter into their own hands. Its all too much drama.

Thoughts?

What we have here is a failure to discriminate (in the good sense of "discriminate").

Beanballs are a different thing than plunking a guy or making him sit down in the dirt.

Beanballs are throwing at somebody's head. AFAIK, everybody's against that.

Equating plunking somebody with beaning them is confusing 2 very different things.

When batters dig in and hang over the plate, or dive over it, I think it's entirely appropriate for the P to redefine who owns what territory. Apart from all the crap that comes with big money and players moving around like crazy, the recent reticence to do that is perhaps the main thing I don't like about the modern game. I think it is one of several factors that loom large in the softball scores that we often blame on roids and lousy pitching.

(Disclaimer: I'm not against players making big money and I think they should have a right to move around. It's just not as nice from a fans perspective as when players stayed around with the team for their whole career and were part of the everyday community.)