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Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Hirshfield: Unfair to Fault Youkilis for Standing Up for His Teammates
Or as Pitch Williams said on the MLB Network…“Why didn’t Youkilis charge Edwin Jackson the day before…Huh? (insert blank stare here) Huh?...BECAUSE HE FELT HE COULD INTIMIDATE A 20-YEAR OLD, THAT"S WHY!”
“There are two real culprits in this Tigers-Red Sox mess, when a brawl broke out in the bottom of the second,” wrote ESPN.com’s Keith Law on Tuesday.
“First is Kevin Youkilis, who showed once again that he can’t keep his emotions in check by charging the mound without a moment of hesitation after he was hit by a pitch. Tigers starter Rick Porcello backed off and raised his hands as if to ask why Youkilis was rushing the mound. Those of us in the scouts’ seats had the same reaction.”
“Huh?” you’re asking. Wait, it gets better.
...let’s get to Law’s assessment of the event in question.
Youkilis “can’t keep his emotions in check”? Now, I won’t disagree with the fact that Youk—an All-Star for the second time in his career this season—gets a little hot under the collar every time he strikes out. That’s his M.O. It’s not completely out of character for people who are great at what they do to be hard on themselves. But, quick, name the last time he did anything inappropriate to another player. I didn’t think you could.
Next, Law—and the rest of his Ivy League cronies in the luxurious scouts’ seats—couldn’t understand why Youkilis was rushing the mound? Really?
OK, I agree that Porcello did look incredulous and scared half to death, wondering why the angry-looking, barrel-chested Sox third baseman was headed his way. Maybe the pitch did get away from him.
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He persists in looking kinda goofy, and plays for a team I don't like
I find both these things morally offensive and funadmentally inappropriate.
I'll have to check the "mound charging" manual and get back to you.
It's funny, but this is how I imagine steroid users to talk.
Do you mean the same Porcello listed at 6-5, 200?
But is he ripped?
Well, of course you're right. The intense guys like that are loved by the home town fans and hated by everyone else. I'm sure I'd have loved O'Neill if he played for the Red Sox.
He looked pretty tough out there until he threw his helmet like a purse then got thrown to the ground by a scared 20 year old.
Below the youtube clip, there are a number of Red Sox fans who insist Youkilis won the fight, and that it was only Kevin's momentum that allowed Porcello to drop him to the ground, and anybody who feels differently must be some kind of [homosexual].
Nation represent!
Yeah. I genuinely mean in all sincerity that this web site is a rare treat of a place on the internet where you can have an intelligent discourse.
Yep. Whenever you get frustrated here, mosey on to an MSM outlet and read the comments and bask in the stupidity. Or, on the opposite spectrum, some place like The Onion's AV club where the commenters are smart but are so super glib and hip and ironically detached from everything you want them all to be handcuffed to the commenters at Fox Sports until they gnaw their own arms off to escape.
*flip*
*slam*
*flip*
*slam*
Dave Stewart was a black belt, something Pat Corrales learned the hard way one sunshiny day in Oakland back in the day...
Porcello had buzzed VMart the inning before, and then hit Youks between the 2 and the 0 on his back in the next inning. Porcello had hit only 1 batter all season before last night.
The whole situation was pretty stupid from both sides. If the Tigers really thought that Tazawa, in big trouble in the first inning, in his second major league start, and with an 0-2 count, was deliberately trying to hit Cabrera (on a pitch that Cabrera check-swung his hand into), well that's simply dumb. And Youkilis getting himself suspended for charging the mound last night was also dumb. And trying to declare a winner in that little wrestling match is triply dumb.
Who was the pitcher that karate-kicked his incoming assailant on the mound? Was it Chan Ho Park?
xkcd: listen to yourself
Stupid wins.
I must admit, the neanderthal in me enjoyed the dust up very much. I will now sit in a corner and feel shame.
Yeah. I have a rule suggestion. If the ball is over the batter's box when it hits you, it's a hit batsman, unless you swing. If it's closer to home plate, it's a ball or strike as the case may be. This will stop guys who dive into pitches. I don't think Cabrera was trying to get hit there, but if it were clear that even by rule, that space belongs to the pitcher, it would stop some of this nonsense.
To be fair to Cabrera he didn't appear (to my eye) to be diving into the pitch. He does set up close to the plate, and with an 0-2 count Varitek called for the usual "stand up for the high fastball" pitch. Tazawa's pitch ran in a little bit, but not a ton, and Cabrera happened to check his swing and the ball got him on the meaty part of his hand. In such cases I wouldn't have any problem with calling that a HBP because hell, feces occurs.
But apparently the Tigers (or Porcello) decided to retaliate for that by buzzing VMart and then hitting Youkilis, which I don't really understand. I respect Leyland far too much to think he would have taken offense at the pitch to Cabrera, so I don't know why Porcello threw at Youkilis nor who might have ordered it, if anyone.
And it must be stopped.
Youkilis should have never written that book about Frank Tanana sticking Mike Piazza in the ass with a PED-filled syringe while Barack Obama paid Barry Bonds to euthanize George Bush's grandma with a taser.
As a fan found out when attacking Randy Myers.
This wasn't bad - but my three favorite mound charging incidents are still:
1. Ed Lynch plunking Keith Moreland, and former Texas DB Moreland then charging the mound and beating the crap out of Lynch. Sort of pre-payback for Lynch's term at the GM helm, I guess.
2. Robin Ventura charging Nolan Ryan - who then puts Ventura in a headlock and proceeds to introduce Robin's face to Ryan's fist... repeatedly. Ventura was actually one of the ChiSox players I liked a bit - but it's just too funny to leave off the list.
3. Mark Grace going after Frank DiPino following a high and tight pitch (which followed back-to-back homers). I think Gracie actually ended up landing on the DL because of the fight -- but he certainly did win the fight.
The only time the mound should be charged is if someone is comming high and tight like Joba or Beckett.
That was a nice throw by porcello.
Was Lynch with the Expos? Day game on WGN, early '80s (Maybe '82 or '83).
When I lived in Austin and would hear Moreland broadcast UT games (both baseball and football), this is what I would usually think of. Which reduces the value of the calm commentary and elder statesman image he would like to project today.
Mets.
It was in 1984 - in a critical August series the Cubs swept to turn a deficit in the standings into a 2 or 3 game lead. 2nd game of a doubleheader, IIRC.
tigers made it personal when they dubbed youkilis the retaliation target two days in a row. youk is now 4th in hbp, and it's not like he even crowds the plate (meanwhile, tazawa's pitch hitting cabrera showed that cabrera's hands were right above the plate, outside of the batter's box). on top of which, tazawa had no reason to hit cabrera - because, you know, you want to load the bases to send a message.
plus, porcello didn't retaliate in the next inning after the cabrera hbp, he waited for youkilis.
anyone who actually had half a brain and watched the game can figure out that porcello and the tigers had it out for them after yesterday's game. but of course, msm just sees a hotheaded youkilis charging the mound and throwing the helmet (that was stupid on youk's part) and blames the neanderthal red sox (oh no! how could a 6'1", 220, skin-head/menacing gotee-wearing monster bully a sweet 20 year old kid like that??? meanwhile, porcello is 6'5" 200)
his choice words back at the ump won't buy him anything, but youkilis will get the brunt of the suspension. porcello will probably just get fined.
look, i'm not defending youkilis charging the mound, but if getting plunked 2 days in a row for retaliation (second of which was uncalled for) doesn't get you hotheaded, then i don't know what will.
youk already "just took his base" the night before. he doesn't need to do it every single day.
No, he should do it every single day. No one should charge the mound, ever.
Moreland was fast enough to play DB, even strong safety, in a major college football program when he was young? I had no idea.
I agree with you. I didn't think he was either. I just think there would be less bad blood, less diving, and less arbitrariness for the umpires to call a guy for not getting out of the way if it were the rule that the batter's box belongs to the batter and the rest of the home plate area belongs to the pitcher.
It was retaliation over Cabrera getting hit both times, wasn't it?
I realize you're being facetious, but I'd still be careful about calling a Jewish guy a skinhead.
Why isn't giving the pitcher a good, solid whack in the body part of the game?
Somebody actually tried to tell me that Guillen's slide into Pedroia was legit, using the (imagined) commentary of Boston's announcers (Orsillo and Eck) as evidence. Never mind that what actually happened is that Eck quoted the rule that says the runner has to be able to reach and maintain the base on a takeout slide. Replay shows that even if Guillen could have touched second base (a fact that is very much in doubt), he would have slid right through it and past it. I'm sure that played into the brawl as well.
so pitchers get to plunk batters with no fear of recourse or retaliation, ever?
you make sure you sing that tune the next time you have a 90 mph fastball thrown at you.
that's the other thing i never understood about retaliation pitches. why are they always 90+ mph fastballs? why not a change up, or slider...something that should be a little less hurtful than straight and fast? you want to send a message, fine. but don't do it with the most violent pitch.
Taking that tack, pitchers shouldn't throw at hitters, either.
EDIT: plim beat me to it.
There is no possible way that Tazawa's pitch was intentional.
When Porcello, who had one HBP and a pretty reasonable walk rate, threw way inside to Martinez there should have been warnings at least. Then he hit Youkilis square in the back with a straight fastball. It seems really unlikely that it got away from him, and even if it did the "what did I do act" is hollow - was he in a cave for the last 10 innings of the series? Of course Youkilis shouldn't have charged - it's bad for the team and doesn't really accomplish anything. Still, this eye-for-an-eye stuff when the first HBP was clearly unintentional is BS.
What about show-boating on the home run trot?
I think that goes in the category of "you screwed up". They can only showboat when they hit a HR. I just think it should take more to justify throwing at someone.
woah...totally slipped my mind...yeah, my bad on that one
Hell, the reason I think Ruth's called shot is a myth is because everyone knows Charlie Root was telling the truth when he says that if Ruth had showed him up like that, he'd have put one in Ruth's ear.
Yes, yes, won't someone please think of the children... Yes, yes, violence doesn't solve anything... Yes, yes on a very real level, it's sort of silly watching adult millionaires behaving like petulant children.
But - so long as there's a penalty to be paid in ejections and (modest - a game or three) suspensions, I have no earth-shattering problem with pitchers drilling the occasional hitter in the back or ribs (headhunting is another matter) and I have no earth-shattering problem with the hitter then running out to the mound.
Generally, when one teams top hitter gets hit the retaliation is directed at the other teams precieved top hitter. Thats the way it always works.
Tie Domi's forays into soccer and acting haven't worked out, so maybe he'd be interested.
I don't know, when did you stop beating your wife?
Picking a fight with Rodriguez? LOL. Spare me the "poor-me" nonsense. The replay was clear in showing Arod pretty much told Tek to take a swing at him after trying to show he was a tough guy by screaming at Arroyo.
Yeah, the Yankees have such real tough guys, like Joba throwing at batters heads and pumping his fist like a polio chimp after every strikeout. Or a few years ago Sheffield taking a swing at a fan in RF. Please.
We'll just chalk this one up to "my organization's awesome, and yours sucks" and move on.
Come on. Charging the mound in baseball has a long and storied history, and is thoroughly entertaining.
Sure. It used to be much worse. Players would have fights with umpires and not expect to be suspended. But violence has become much less socially acceptable in all realms of society. I don't mind a dust-up in a contact sport, and even an occasional mound-charging, but Youkilis can't be risking the suspension given where the Sox are now. It would have been much better to have the next reliever who's about to be designated for assignment dust off Brandon Inge, since when the pitcher doesn't bat, going after the catcher is the next best thing.
In fact I think a base should not be awarded to the hitter if 1) he doesn't move, 2) the pitch is not in the batters box, or 3) it hits the batter on his body armor.
Most of this is caused by hitters think they own the plate. I was a bad hitter because everytime I went to the plate I was always focused on getting out of the way of the random #### kids throw. Major league hitters need more fear.
That's pretty much Aikido. Youkilis lost the "fight" without question.
the FoxSports commenters are the Babe Ruth of stupid
Good lord, yes. Actually, they're the Sidd Finch of stupid--they've taken the concept to such extremes that they can't possibly exist.
One of these days, a batter is going to charge the mound and find out the hard way that the pitcher used to be the state champion in judo.
Didn't Rheal Cormier bust out some textbook judo on Jim Thome a few years back?
It was quite a while ago now (early 90s), but I remember an incident in which some idiot charged Todd Stottlemyre but was caught from behind by Pat Borders before he made it to the mound. Todd looked incredibly disappointed, as he was a black belt in Judo or something similar, and was already in position to just clobber the charging soon-to-be victim.
Not even when he hulked up a couple years ago in that Tigers brawl?
I would extend this to say that any player wearing body armor other than a helmet or a shin pad simply doesn't take his base if he is hit by a pitch. That would be a tough call for an ump I would think.
I also think any armor should be required to be removed before a player leaves the batter's box. It would be fun to see a guy like Giambi thrown out 8-3 because he had to pop off his arm band.
Or maybe they could just get rid of the goddamned stuff. I'm all for protecting the players but if you don't want to get hit, don't stand on the plate.
I wouldn't have married her in the first place if she couldn't throw a left hook like a man.
He made me flail at him while I wore my protective gear! I didn't want to, but he made me!
No matter how bad FoxSports commenters are, they're still better than the crew which regularly haunts YouTube threads.
He tackled someone on the Reds a while back when he was with the Cubs. Wanna say Paul Wilson but I'm not sure.
The "come on! Eff you!" invitation would indicate this is what Arod wanted anyway.
No point in arguing this from either side, since again it boils down to MY TEAM RULEZ. Which I'm pretty sure must then lead to YOUR TEAM DROOLZ, and then all hell really breaks loose.
And 58: Check this out
I thought it was Paul Wilson too, but didn't post it because I wasn't positive. IIRC, Wilson was trying to bunt, and Farnsworth went up and in. Wilson started toward the mound and Farnsworth just slammed him
You can be sure the catcher never caught Izzy Alcantara. That's still my favorite mound charge.
The problem with this is an intentional/unintentional HBP is completely in the eye of the beholder. Usually it goes something like this:
The batting team: Obviously he was throwing at us.
The pitching team: Why would he throw at him in that situation, look at the count, score, etc.?
Until we've got a surefire way of determining intent, other than the color of the uniform, then there will always be dustups like this.
Youkilis took one in the opener of the series after Cabrera had been hit in the prior inning as well. I think he doesn't charge if not for that he was the designated guy to retaliate on two nights in a row.
I am still trying to figure out why the Tigers decided to retaliate last night at all. Does anyone really think that Tazawa hit Cabrera on purpose given the count and the circumstances?
plus, pedroia can get away with that. he's about the size of an 8 year old school girl =)
I think that was Game 4 of the '07 ALCS (looks like Byrd in the background of that pic, well Byrd or Westbrook, tough to tell). I thought Pedroia tried to slide in headfirst around the tag, but my memory of that play is not all that clear.
I actually remember the play, Game 4 or 5 of the 2007 ALCS. I remember at the time thinking that Pedroia started to go into a dive when the throw came off the bag and stumbled. Indian fans I suspect would argue that Pedroia flailed hard after Martinez trying to knock the ball out of his glove. Obviously a still frame won't prove anything one way or the other.
Are you fourteen years old?
The latter -- there was some blah-blah when that happened about Pedroia trying to intentionally slap the ball away (the way A-Rod did in '04), but seeing the play in real time (and on endless replay) it looked more like Pedroia was trying to avoid the tag on an errant throw to 1B. Or he slipped. Can't recall the specifics of the actual play, tho I do recall the furor about the supposed slap.
I totally agree. There's just something sort of comical about it.
I think it depends on whether you think the pitch to Martinez was a ball that just came inside or if it was supposed to hit him. Because it was in the half-inning between that pitch and hitting Youk that Cabrera had to leave the game after attempting a swing in his next AB. So maybe even though it wasn't intentional to hit Cabrera, if you knock the other team's best hitter out of the game and possibly a bunch more to come, you get one regardless.
No, but I can see why HERO threw at VMart next inning. Cabrera was hit in two straight games, time to remind BOS to be careful. I do think Porcello is telling the truth when he says he hit Hobobeard McCranium by accident.
Cabrera check-swung into the pitch from Tazawa, which wasn't all that inside. It was unfortunate but just a "shiit happens" play. Why should Boston then reminded to be careful over what was an accident?
I guess Porcello's intent is where we'll differ. Porcello had buzzed Martinez at the end of the previous inning, and then he hit Youkilis square between the numbers on the first pitch of the following inning. This is a pitcher who had hit one guy all year and who's got a decent walk rate. Looked intentional to me only because of the Martinez-Youkilis sequence. If he had just hit Youk without buzzing Martinez first I wouldn't think it was intentional; the book on Youkilis is to pitch him inside and then low. Plus the pitch to Youkilis wasn't just inside off the plate: it was right into the middle of his back.
It's not like CC was in that game long enough for that to be conclusive, anyway.
Yeah, I'm too dumb to think of checking the pitcher in the background.
It was Game Four. V-Mart caught Game Three, Pedroia opened the game with a 5-3 ground out which was the play.
Even Eck thought it was by accident.
that's definitely Byrd. Westbrook is pretty tall.
Eck has never sided with a batter on any day of his life. :)
Dan Shughnessy told me in yesterday's paper that Tazawa was the modern-day Bobby Sprowl. Bastard lied to me.
&, yeah, maybe it was NESN being fair & balanced, but Jackson "needed" to be held back multiple times, even after the fracas settled down.
just went with the anger, one time.
How many games is he gonna get? 3, when its all said and done?
And in the interests of fairness, Guillen's take out slide should hav been called too. Just an atrociously umped game.
Surprisingly, skinhead doesn't necessarily connote Nazi sympathies or extreme right-wing hatemongering.
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