Throwing at ARod

It's not just that it creates a risk of injury. It's that the sole purpose of throwing at someone is to inflict pain upon them. Unlike driving into the paint or tackling or cross-checking, there is no legitimate competitive goal which is furthered-- it's 100% ulterior motive. Indeed, hitting someone actively hurts your team rather than helping you win. That's the key reason it's different from sliding to try and break up a double play or running over the catcher (although I do think both those activities are bad for the game, too).

And the idea that fans would stop coming to games or caring about the sport because pitchers stopped beaning people on purpose is really, really unlikely.

jmei,

Good point regarding any benefit at throwing at another player, especially within the "rules" allowed in the current game that the HP umpire sometimes will give out a warning when the 1st offense is given and a possible suspension could follow and no head hunters have been around since Ryan to operate with impunity.

Many have noticed that pitchers will even intentionally hit players hitting leadoff and in close games, as happened last night. It just makes no sense, not counting the ball players one would not want to hit who were known "mound chargers" like Willie Stargell and Albert Bell.

Red Sox fans, of all should be against HBP. They have lost 2 great players as the result. Tony Conigliaro and Bill Lee in the brawl resulting from a HBP.

Of course, Tony C was not hit on purpose, according to both him and the pitcher. So we should really ban pitchers from throwing hard objects near players. Everyone would be better off if the pitcher threw a virtual ball and the hitter faced virtual pitches. Or maybe use whiffle balls or foam. It's all about safety, kids.

Covering up an infraction is often punished much more harshly than the underlying offense. This is not the most serious penalty ever handed down by MLB, but its also not fixing games.

You still haven't provided an example of a "justified situation."

And this is a risk that comes with nothing beneficial attached. "Policing the game?" That's why we have rules and umpires to enforce them. There's no need to have vigilantism, especially when it's always over some petty, inane "unspoken rule."

I bet if Lackey was pitching the final game of the series he would of hit A-rod instead.

I wasn't for the HBP, but I am not making a huge deal out of it. It means that somewhere down the road Pedroia/Ortiz/maybe Bogaerts is going to take a pitch off a Yankee pitcher. I would be more for it if it actually ignited the Yankee/Red Sox player rivalry, but so far it hasn't seemed too.

Not sure if this is the thread for this comment, but I do believe there is a witch hunt + conspiracy against A-rod. He deserves a suspension but I don't think 211 is fair. Should of been 50 for PED 50 for coverup+what ever else, there is no basis for 211. I also think they were messing with him earlier in the year when he was saying he was ready to play.

Also this @joelsherman1 MLB decision on Dempster coming later today and hear he is almost certain to get suspension of some kind for hitting A-Rod #Yankees #Redsox

12 minutes ago

Anyone who has some basic knowledge of baseball should have an idea of what justified throwing at a player - I'm surprised your bias has apparently obscured your memory. Let's start with:

Spiking. Taunting. Racial taunting. Cheating. Intentional HBP without cause.

There is admittedly some gray area involved. But in the current situation, when everyone knows it was intentional, I would have ejected Dempster immediately and suspend him 10+ games. It's generally pretty clear when HBP are intentional (i.e., after a guy hits a home run, after someone on the other team is hit), and I would tell umpires to have a quicker trigger in terms of warning both teams and throwing guys out.


We can go through one-by-one:
-Spiking is already impermissible per rule 7.09 and has become pretty rare in the modern era. Ty Cobb's shenanigans are long since gone from the game, and any egregious examples would almost certainly result in a fine and/or suspension.
-Almost every case of taunting is the silly playground kind which I expect professional athletes to be able to move on from.
-Racial taunting: what is this, 1960? Besides, most recent examples of this kind of stuff has been cracked down on hard by the Commissioner-- John Rocker was suspended 28 games in 2000 for spouting garbage and Yunel Escobar got suspended three games for a gay slur on his eye black.
-Cheating: are there no collectively-bargained rules that punish PED users, bat corkers, and spitballers?
-Intentional HBP: I see that we agree that intentionally hitting someone without cause is stupid. Now we're just haggling over the details.

Oh, and by the way, things have been trending towards fewer beanings, collisions at home plate, takeout slides, etc. for a few decades now. I'm on the right side of history, and the intentional HBP will inevitably wash out of the game, as it has for the most part already.

I'm not sure why you're taking things so personally, so we'll just agree to disagree.