‘phew’...thought he was going to throw in a Dorothy Hamill’s haircut jab while he was at it.
“Players take care of themselves,” Rizzo said after I called him this morning. “I’ve never seen a more classless, gutless chicken [bleep] act in my 30 years in baseball.
“Cole Hamels says he’s old school? He’s the polar opposite of old school. He’s fake tough. He thinks he’s going to intimidate us after hitting our 19-year-old rookie who’s eight games into the big leagues? He doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.”
Rizzo said player safety should take precedence and Hamels should miss at least one start.
“With all the bounty [stuff] going on in professional football, the commissioner better act with a purpose on this thing,” Rizzo said. “Players have a way of monitoring themselves. We’re not here to hit people and hurt people.
“He thinks he’s sending a message to us of being a tough guy. He’s sending the polar opposite message. He says he’s being honest; well, I’m being honest. It was a gutless chicken [bleep] [bleeping] act. That was a fake-tough act. No one has ever accused Cole Hamels of being old school.”
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1. Davo Mastroianni Posted: May 07, 2012 at 05:37 PM (#4125679)well if you put it that way...
I actually agree, Hamels SHOULD be suspended, and I'm thinking lengthy enough to guarantee that he misses at least one or two starts.
Great, so Hamels has to delay his next start by all of a day or two, depending on the Phillies schedule. They should have made it a minimum of 12 games. At least when the NFL decides to address a problem, they make the penalty hurt.
Everybody must get stoned
This is how Bill Maher lost all that advertising money.
How often does the pitcher get plunked?
Isn't hitting people the time-tested way players have established of monitoring themselves?
If nothing else, the rapid-fire suspension means Hamels doesn't have to go through the charade of appealing the suspension, only to drop said appeal after his next start.
Virtually never.
and I thought he lost all that advertising money by not being entertaining and having no viewers...
Last year, non-pitchers in the NL got plunked about 5 times as often the league as a whole. However, I'd guess the vast majority of HBP are unintentional - the pitcher is trying to work inside and he goes too far inside. Since pitchers are mostly horrible hitters, I'd guess they aren't worked inside when at the plate which would virtually eliminate "mistake" HBP.
Also, some number of pitchers will be ejected or otherwise removed from the game before hitting and relievers will never bat after hitting someone. In all, I bet the percentage of HBP that are "pitcher subsequently hit for intenionally throwing at a hitter" is pretty high.
I just went back a couple of more years - NL HBP are shockingly consistant over the past 4 seasons, varying by 4 hundredths of a percent per PA (0.83% - 0.87%) over that time. In '09 and '10, pitchers were actually hit 40-42% as often as the league, but in '08 only about 1/8 as often.
Edited to correct an incorrect statement.
This might be oversimplifying.
In terms of retaliation for a previous plunking, this is the first recorded incident of it happening since August 3rd, 2010.
Leake hit McCutchen in the bottom of the 2nd.
Maholm hit Leake in the top of the 3rd.
In between, there were 19 other pitchers that were hit without any prior plunkings to the other team.
The look of pain on his face as he stumbled down the line on the foul ball made it pretty clear to everyone else that he probably shouldn't have been up there.
Incredible that no one is calling Rizzo to account for this absurd hyperbole. Paying people to intentionally try to aggravate head, neck, and leg injuries in an attempt to remove them from the game is a little different than throwing a ball into someone's back.
I'm shocked how little the fact that Hamels obviously hit him in a place where he wouldn't get hurt goes unmentioned. He's a control guy and gave him a five-day bruise. He was obviously stupid to mention it, and deserves the suspension, but Rizzo's comments are so far the most ridiculous part of the story.
Well, he has a rep as a tool (albeit, a talented one). There was the (apparent) blowing a kiss to the pitcher after a HR last season in a MiLB game, and on his first hit this year he intentionally knocked his own helmet off while running, apparently to do a better Charlie Hustle imitation. Honestly, I'm surprised he made it this far without someone drilling him (not that I condone it, I'm more in the strike 'em out to prove your point camp).
The problem with Hamels acting like some kind of enforcer is, well... just look at the link, I guess.
I was under the impression that they don't, except when it's a violation of the drug policy.
Did you see Aaron Cook's leg on Saturday? He had a gash on it roughly the size and shape of his mouth, and he stayed in the game.
Miguel Olivo passed a kidney stone during a game and kept playing. That meets my definition of tough.
After leaving MLB, both Jeff Conine and Eric Byrnes have completed Ironman Triathlons. That is pretty tough.
Aaron Miles: also tough (read about halfway down).
As I said in the other thread, this is the Nationals pitchers putting their foot down and saying, "we're not playing any games and we're willing to put our own health at risk." It's like some sort of mandate of support for Harper.
Things people who sniff other people's jocks say.
Compared to the other major team sports, the physical toughness required to play baseball just simply doesn't rate. Nobody is tough by virtue of playing professional baseball. They are just better at playing baseball than most of the rest of us will be at just about anything.*
I like baseball as much as the next poster, but getting in a pissing contest over who's tough when the context is baseball is completely ####### ludicrous.
* Well, I take that back. I'll give you catchers.
Baseball is a 162-game schedule and 80% of the players are playing hurt after the first two weeks of the season. Every major leaguer has gotten there because they don't budge on breaking balls that would make 99.9% of people in the world crap their pants. Every major leaguer has to be able to go hard into second when a middle-infielder is looking to low-bridge them and take their head off. Every major leaguer has been hit on the hand by a 90+ mph fastball and stayed in the game. Every infielder has to stand in front of a ball scorched at them coming upwards of 100 mph. Every outfielder has to be able to run back in full sprint without knowing where they are in relation to a solid wall.
Perhaps you don't understand the game speed of any of the above because you're stuck watching the games in you mother's basement, but you're speaking a bunch of nonsense.
Are they automatically not tough?
This has to be the Godwin's Law of baseball arguments.
So, nothing, then?
I think Harper showed his quality by jogging to first with no look back and making his point on the field.
Eh - sometimes passing the stone isn't bad once it's already journeyed all the way down to the bladder. I once passed a stone (which I knew for weeks was there) mid-pregaming at a friend's bachelor party in vegas. Just went to the bathroom wizzed it out, zipped up, picked up my drink and went on.
I was going to bring up this game since I happened to be there. The McCutchen beaning was unpleasant to witness - he was hit somewhere up around his face and went straight down in a heap. When Leake came up to bat and was hit he didn't react at all and just went to first as if he had expected it. Everyone seemed to take it in stride and as an AL fan I had no idea this was a rare event.
Except that Zimmerman knew that the umps would give both teams a warning and nobody would be throwing at him.
Yeah, my thought, too. The rest of the comment stands, though. An MLB season is incredibly punishing on the body.
Of all the stupid things said on this board over the past five years, you have the honor of earning only my second Ignore Award.
Employee must wash their hands before returning to work...or so the sign says. Such blatant disregard.
Bob Gibson finished an inning after having his leg broken badly (As in compound fracture IIRC) by a line drive. Cut it any way ya wanna, that's balls to the wall tough as nails.
And we won't even talk about the old time guys who came from the mines....they knew tough like few modern Americans will ever understand
Not to dispute Gibson's toughness, but you can't stand up with a compound fracture of the leg.
Leyland thinks Hamels suspension is too light
You are correct. I wasn't sure if my memory was accurate (Hence the disclaimer) but was too lazy to look up the facts (Turns out I got the snapped bone right, just not the order of occurrence)-from Wiki, the story:
"The Cardinals built a three and half game lead prior to the 1967 season All-Star break, and Gibson pitched the seventh and eighth innings of the 1967 All-Star game. Gibson then faced the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 15, when Roberto Clemente hit a line drive off Gibson's right leg. Unaware his leg had been fractured, Gibson faced three more batters before his right fibula bone snapped above the ankle."
Yeeeow.
okay, i'll bite, but this is hella stupid.
if you're a regular, you have to endure 150-plus games of having to run full out on every play you are involved in, and if you've ever closely watched a game, there's a lot of running for position players because they back up a LOT of plays; facing 90-mph pitching, and no pads - they've cracked down on the barry bonds armor, y'know; 110-degree heat on the field for nine innings in the dead of summer; you don't get to opt out of trying to break up a double play or having to take down the catcher in a play at home; did i mention no pads?; i don't know if you've ever had to actually field a position but a glove doesn't exactly take the sting out of catching a ball if you don't get it in the webbing; thanks to the rules everybody wears batting helmets, which has greatly reduced the concussions, but it still hurts like a ##### to get hit by a pitch, and there are still some concussions anyway.
pitchers don't get to throw soft when their shoulder/elbow/wrist hurts. they have to throw damn hard until they break down. i guess you think that tickles.
and by the way, when players get hurt they keep playing. it isn't as pronounced as it was in the old days, but players today play hurt all the time. some of them hide the severity of their injuries because they want to earn their contract and they want to play. we see players with mysteriously lowered production every year. they didn't all get bad overnight. they are trying to compensate. also thanks to modern sports medicine, a lot of injured guys are going back in after rehab, which is no picnic. so many players are having their toughness tested after an injury that would have ended a career back in the 'rub some chewing tobacco on it' days.
if that isn't tough, what is? they don't end up crippled? they weren't dumb enough to suit up in a game that treats you like meat? is that your cutoff?
i could go on, but its obvious that you don't know what you're talking about, so i've probably wasted my time.
you're a troll. you got me. do yourself a favor and pay for a ticket that gets you down to field level and watch how the game is played by major leaguers. you'd swallow your bubble gum.
- F. Farr, "Black Champion - The Life and Times of Jack Johnson (1964)"
You really think that this is not tough?
Saying a sport doesn't have tough players, is ridiculous(I can see if you were talking about European soccer, where most of the players pass out if another guy gets within 2 feet) There are some sports that have a higher percentage of tough players(hockey most notably, basketball to a lesser degree---football if you only count the non-skilled positions) but to claim there aren't tough ball players is ridiculous.
Perhaps aspiring male model Hollywood Hamels thought he could erase his own "soft" image by casting himself as some kind of old school enforcer. Doesn't seem to have worked.
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