Baseball: Thowing At Batters... Is It Legit?

its an intimidation tactic. and legit, unless you hit them.

its like fighters that stare each other down or other sports that talk trash. You should hear some of the trash that gets talked on a football field purely for intimidation purposes.

It's BS in the AL.

In the NL, at least pitchers have to bat so they have to "face the music" if they hit a batter by going to bat themselves.

If I were "king of baseball", hitting a batter would be worth 2 bases, not just 1, and the AL wouldn't have a designated batter rule.

No, the goal isnt to hit them. Pitchers can throw a ball with pinpoint accuracy at 90+ mph. If they wanted to hit the 6 foot+ stationary targe, they easily could.

A lot is gained. If you are throwing outside to the batter, and he starts crowding the plate, brushing him back with a smoking fastball to the inside will make him not really want to get out in the strike zone of a 90+ mph baseball. Maybe you'll throw it outside, maybe you'll drive it into his earhole if you're stretching for that outside pitch

Doesnt intimdate? Have you ever been hit by a serious fastball? Not that pitcher back in middleschool, i mean a real live fastball. When i was about 14, i used to play little league and we had a pitcher that was a big deal locally because he has a pitch clocked at 83mph. I was the catcher for this guy and had to wear padded gloves under my mitt to catch him. On the rare occasion that an opposing player would lean into the pitch and take one for the team to get on base, he would have a purple mark on him that would last for weeks. And thats from a kid.

You can bet that the batter is intimidated as hell when he sees a ball coming in so fast that he knows it could easily crack ribs or put such a deep bruise in his thigh he can barely run

Michael, I can see what you're saying, but the OPs discussion is about the goal being hitting the batter.

What kind of a retard coach would instruct his pitcher to essentially put the other team's batter on base and probably get his a$$ kicked, while making every person on his team a target for their pitcher in retribution.

thats stupid.

Played baseball my whole life, and believe me there is a difference between a "brushback" pitch to keep someone from crowding the plate, and trying to hit someone.

Pitchers know exactly what they're doing.

And when they throw for the head it deserves something more severe than throwing them out of the game.

Don't let anyone tell you "it's just part of the game", it's never been.

The most obvious bean ball lately was the one against Prince Fielder. He was beaned in the 9th, with the score something like 13-4. It's becoming really bad and it's no concidence it's always the other teams best hitter.

Never in the situation you described. I wouldn't anyways... I played through high school, and I would throw at people occasionally if they were crowding the plate really aggressively. That's about the only situation though.

Edit: And agreed with you guys on the DH bit. I've always harbored a fair amount of resentment towards the AL because of that.

TLTheLiberator,

I am certainly NOT an expert on the game but, as I recall, you are NOT supposed to hit the guy. People here seem to also be saying that.

But a lot of those people are stupid and agressive, get a LOT of money, that is sometimes based on score, etc... and they seem to care more about their "win" than the team winning, or even the game itself! THAT is why sports get so agressive, etc... You would think that a game like baseball would be relatively free from any sort of injury outside of a few odd accidents(like getting hit with a ball BY MISTAKE, tripped BY mistake, etc...) or just dumb luck, like a dislocated shoulder because of tripping, or a very fast pitch, etc....

It is almost like people that I have heard about that take anabolic steroids and get "roid rage", and will FIGHT over a 2.5(a bit over 1 KG) pound weight! They could end up having MAJOR injuries from something that should be relatively safe!

WOW, you and I agree on something! I ALSO would say "I believe the practice is bush league, corny and juvenile."!

Steve

As for paying, if you want "pay", why not steal like madoff!? HECK, HE probably considered it a sport. In fact, I think I did hear that he said he considered it a game.

And WHY PITCH? we could just have a special gun! Why bat? Maybe the ball could be super bouncy, and hit the back and ricochet! And WHO NEEDS TO RUN!?!?!? Let's use MOTORCYCLES! You said YOURSELF that we should ignore any pleas against such things, as they are only complaining because they are LOSERS!

Steve

If i did, they wouldnt be the ones in the dugout at the end of the game all snot nosed because they lost

Just yesterday listening to sports radio, Jim Leyland (manager of the Detroit Tigers) was quoted as saying that those who make such a big deal about steroid use in baseball probably don't like the sport anyway.

Meaning, in my own interpretation, that those actually IN the game of baseball care less about the steroid use than those outside the game. Such as Senators...

Note - I did not say ALL inside baseball. But here's a guy who's been in the league a LONG time, coached some of the biggest names in the sport (such as Bonds...) and he's saying it's a bigger deal outside the game than inside it.

If the use of steroids is so rampant in baseball (as some say), then what's the real advantage to using it? Wouldn't the playing field kind of level itself off with so many supposed users?

And if as a player, you spend 6 hours a day in the gym, working out, becoming fit, etc. NO drugs, wouldn't you think that would make you a better player than someone who doesn't go to the gym or work out at all? And isn't THAT an advantage?

Throwing intentionally at someones head though...that's cheap. Brush backs are one thing. Trying to take someone out of the game is something else entirely.

Interesting discussion though.


Leylands Quote from 8/9/09:

Leyland predicted another player will be identified in a month.

"I know the media has to report information," Leyland said. "I'm not blaming the media, but they're not going to let it alone. I'm not blaming anybody because it's news and that's what you people do for a living."

Leyland usually sidesteps conversations about steroids, but on Sunday said that while he does not condone the use of performance-enhancing drugs he suggested that most fans don't care about the issue.

"The people who care about it probably don't like baseball," Leyland said.
In any case, Leyland is "sick and tired" of the ongoing saga.

"We've made mistakes, there have been some guys who admitted it so you know it was there," he said. "How many people? I have no idea."

Truce Michael.

I only got revved up when you called Seasoned "Marry Poppins" and implied he was a loser in sports growing up. What can I say. I'm competitive.

My main point in all of this, which actually is relevant, is that one of the quickest ways to hone in on a fellow man's character is to get them on the sports field. Is he a team player, or selfish? Does he hustle, or slack off? Will he cut corners and cheat, or leave his guts on the field, win or lose?

To me, it's about character, which isn't limited to sports.

But I didn't intend for it to get personal. For that, I apologize Michael...

Truce.

I agree to a certain point about character. But i think that when it comes to competitive sports, the object is to win. Not to win noblely, not to win with as many friends as you can, not to win in such a way that makes your grandmother proud. Charachter is about morals, your morals and my morals are different. .

Lets say there are 2 pro baseball players. Both have signed up with a different pro ball team, they are part of an organization and as such should have the goal of winning games, thats what their organization is about and thats why the organization picked and paid them. Now one of them plays completely legal. He would never do anything shady at all and his team ends up in third place.

The other does steroids to gain strength and agility. Even though he knows that if he does steroids theres a good chance that he'll die early, and wreck his body. But his team are the champs

Who has more character, the guy that wouldnt do what it took to help the organization that through a legally binding contract paid him to win achieve their goals, letting his entire team down, or the guy that that willingly gave everything (including his body) for his team to win.

You think it takes more charachter not to win if it means cheating, i think it takes more charachter to do what you were contracted to do even if it means cheating. THAT is 'leaving guts on the field'.

One of the many saying you always hear about competitive games is 'it doesnt matter if you win or lose, its how you play the game'.

Thats not true. If it didnt matter if you win or lose, we wouldnt keep score.

I wasn't even talking about endorsements, but the likelyhood of losing endorsements is probably over 3 times as likely. Vick is a good example. How many endorsements is HE likely to get? I probably didn't think about endorsements, because Motley doesn't seem to care about people anyway.

There is a LOT that you can do that is perfectly legal, MAYBE even moral, MAYBE even accepted by over 10% of society, MAYBE even accepted by most of a companies customers that could even lose your ability to be a spokesman for that company. ALSO, any decent company includes a little clause in their contract that makes it to where if you are even SUSPECTED of impropriety in that way, they CANCEL THE CONTRACT!

On a side point, I remember a STUPID line of questioning and "reporting" on mcguire that made it sound like, and some actually said that, creatine was a STERIOD! That is a LIE, and it doesn't work the same way AT ALL. Anabolic steroids make you more agressive, less likely to feel pain, and increase healing, so you are more likely to push yourself lift more weight longer and recover quicker. They also tend to be androgenic. Creatine works by building up ATP so you can lift longer and harder and get stronger that way, and isn't androgenic at all.

Anyway, with that line of questioning and all, one of my first thoughts was "GREAT(sarc), NOW they'll get rid of CREATINE"! Luckily, smarter heads prevailed. Even today creatine is recognized as one of the safest supplements that actually works.

Steve