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Dumb and dumber Beanings and brawls make pitchers and hitters look foolishPosted: Monday June 23, 2003 11:42 AM
Baseball players are apparently much brighter than most of us give them credit for being. They can, for example, make sense of the convoluted rules of procedure regarding hit batsmen -- a set of unwritten rules that, for those of us with merely average I.Q.s, is harder to understand than quantum physics. The formula goes like this: Pitcher X hits Batter Y with a pitch. Whether this is intentional or not usually makes no difference. Before the game is over, Pitcher Y must retaliate by hitting Batter X. If he doesn't, Pitcher Y will lose the respect of his teammates. It's not clear what happens to a pitcher who loses that respect. (Does the rest of the team exclude him from clubhouse card games? Spit tobacco juice on his shoes? Hold him down and shave his entire body?) Whatever the punishment, it must be terrible, because most pitchers would plunk their grandma in the ribs with a fastball to avoid it. When Batter X gets hit by Pitcher Y, he has little choice but to charge the mound, starting a brawl that results in ejections, suspensions and/or heavy fines for Batter X, Pitcher Y, and usually several other combatants. What? You don't see the logic in all that? Must be because you're not a ballplayer. Any big leaguer will tell you it makes perfect sense. Just ask pitchers Paul Wilson of the Reds and Kyle Farnsworth of the Cubs. Last week, Wilson hit a Cubs batter and Farnsworth retaliated by throwing at Wilson, who then charged Farnsworth and came out of the resulting melee with a face that looked as if he'd gone a couple of rounds with Lennox Lewis . Wilson and Farnsworth and others are awaiting their punishments, which will no doubt be similar to the suspensions handed out to Phillies hurler Carlos Silva (six games) and his manager Larry Bowa (one game) along with Reds teammates Adam Dunn and Sean Casey (three games each) for an almost identical dustup a few days earlier. This, of course, is madness. Pay no attention to the players and ex-players who insist that this is just the way it's done in baseball, and the way it should be done. With their beanballs and brawls, major leaguers are playing fast and loose with each other's health. There is too much potential for injury to dismiss these incidents with a simple, "That's baseball." Adding two basic rules could clean things up in a hurry. First, any pitcher who hits a batter in the face or head is automatically ejected from the game. Intent doesn't matter. The baseball becomes a potentially deadly weapon in the hands of a big leaguer, and pitchers who bean hitters shouldn't be able to casually explain that they were just trying to pitch inside and the ball got away. "Oops," isn't good enough. There should be a heavy deterrent to letting the ball get away. When a pitcher throws inside, the batter shouldn't be the only one who has to be careful. Second, any player who joins a fight is automatically ejected from the game, suspended from the next, and fined. This is similar to the NBA rule that has made fighting almost non-existent in that league. For belligerent ballplayers, there's safety in numbers. They would much rather get lost in a scrum than have to take on another player, one on one. If a batter knows he's on his own when he goes after the pitcher, he's less likely to charge the mound. If a pitcher knows his catcher isn't going to grab the hitter before he reaches the mound, he probably won't be quite as willing to hit a batter and cause a confrontation. Maybe this doesn't make as much sense as players flinging baseballs at each other at 90 mph, or millions of dollars of talent risking injury by rolling around in a wrestling match on the field. But it's the best we could come up with. Not everyone can be as smart as ballplayers. Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor writes about a Hot Button topic every Monday on SI.com.
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