terd, please familiarise yourself with the term “fair use”. Kudos on including the link, but you can’t just copy and past an entire copyrighted article. I’ve shortened your quote to reflect what amounts to a reasonable share of what one can post.
Just in case anybody was really wondering whether or not he actually did own up to his actions.
I have no dog in this fight, the Yankees beat the Twins, and Pedro has always been sort of a gutless coward as far as this part of his game is concerned, so I don’t really care either way.
They would both lose to the Cubs anyway.
Can we PLEASE get some perspective here???
Excellent control does NOT mean you put EVERY FREAKING PITCH exactly where you want it. If that were true, he wouldn’t have walked anyone all year. We must accept the fact that a pitcher with excellent control will let a ball get away from him from time to time. Ergo, the only person who knows if he intended to hit Garcia is Pedro.
BTW, why would he hit a cream puff hitter like Garcia??? Don’t let the fact he’s a couple of HR’s this year fool you. He’s nobody that any pitcher need fear.
Now, on to the nonsense that “Pedro wouldn’t pull this crap if he had to bat”. It IS nonsense. He spent 6 years in the NL, including 4 in Montreal where he pitched just the way he does now. That’s why Boston went out to get him.
Pitchers like Pedro HAVE to pitch inside and they end up hitting lots of gus. Kevin Brown hit a lot of guys pitching inside in the AL, and he’s hit a lot more since coming to the NL. Kerry Wood has hit 21 guys this year, more than Pedro.
Back in the old days, hitters didn’t whine so much about being hit and take it as a personal injustice and a threat to their manhood.
Shut your pie-hole, you whiny little bitch. That’s about the most tasteless steaming pile of crap I’ve seen dumped on this board in a while…using 9/11 to bitch about a fucking sports event. Christ. Fuck you. Fuck your mother.
Christ. Security was instantly in the bullpen breaking up the fight (but not before your little shit of a reliever could put cleat marks on a guy who was just cheering for his team), and I’m sick of all this “this wouldn’t happen at Yankee Stadium” bullshit. Last I checked, there have been plenty brawls at Yankee Stadium. Sit and swivel, asshole.
Well, no. You can certainly walk people by pitching around them - that is, aiming just off the corners, not giving the batter anything to really slam. He does have excellent control. My opinion is that he knew exactly where the pitch was going, and his past supports this to a degree. You’re right, he’s the only one who knows for sure, but I don’t think it’s likely one simply got away from him.
Because he was frustrated, and when he gets frustrated he just hits the first person he sees. I don’t think he was hitting him to avoid Garcia’s getting a hit. I think he was hitting him (if indeed he did) because he was pissed at himself and the Yankees.
I don’t think he pitches the same now as he did then. He walks far, far fewer now than he did in Montreal and Los Angeles; ergo, his control has improved greatly.
Maybe you’re confusing “pitching inside” with “hitting a batter with intent to injure.” They’re not quite the same thing, spooje. The pitcher needs to gain that inner part of the plate. Absolutely must to be a successful pitcher. Pitchers who are fearless and have excellent control can do this. But it takes no fearlessness OR control to throw at a batter’s head. In fact, one might argue it takes cowardice, since the pitcher in this equation won’t have to face the opposing pitcher.
Sure they did. There have been brushback pitches and brawls for as long as the game’s been around. This is not a new phenomenon. What’s new is that more batters are leaning over the plate and are getting hit. What should happen is that the umps enforce that rule about at least attempting to get out of the way. Nowadays, the batter has padding that softens the blow to an extent, and in some cases he doesn’t mind getting hit so much. Getting hit should be a deterrant to hovering over the plate.
To be fair, Jeff Nelson isn’t really all that little, at 6’8", 250…
Just let me get something straight. Do you think Clemens meant to hit Piazza in the head? Would you accuse him of cowardice? How about Randy Johnson? He’s been accused of head hunting a number of times, both in the AL and NL. I would need to see some evidence that Clemens or Martinez would alter their pitching style to avoid getting hit themselves.
I stand by my assertion that Clemens and Martines would pitch exactly the same in the NL.
I agree here.
I don’t know if he did. I think he meant to hit him with the bat, though.
Is he a coward? Would he pitch the same in the NL? No way. He would pitch inside, but he’d be less enthusiastic about pitching way inside. For a pitcher with excellent control, this distinction can be made. Clemens is a great pitcher who can throw near a batter to intimidate him with impunity. If he were in the NL, he’d still pitch inside, but I don’t think he’d be as likely to throw at people, which I think he does on occasion to send a “message.”
Except that–as has been repeatedly shown by anecdote and statistic–having to face the opposing pitcher is absolutely no deterrant, because they do it anyway.
Do what? Intentionally throw at a batter or unintentionally hit one? You can compare HBP stats from league to league, but it’s tough to say definitively that pitchers in NL don’t headhunt as much as those in the AL, and vice versa. I can only suppose the former is true because the pitcher needs fear no retribution.
Yeah, except that plenty of pitchers acquire their headhunter reps in the NL.
As for headhunting vs incidental plunks, which sounds more far-fetched to you:
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NL pitchers don’t worry about getting thrown at, especially since they may not be batting for another 2 or 3 innings when things may have cooled down, and no opposing pitcher wants to put an easy out on base, especially with the top of the order probably batting after the pitcher.
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AL pitchers–since the advent of the DH–have so much better control that they can headhunt, and still hit few enough batters unintentionally that they end up with lower HBP stats than NL pitchers.
To me, No. 2 sounds extraordinarily unlikely; you’re basically saying that having a DH gives the pitcher better control. Or that NL players stand literally on top of the plate, or something like that.
For the 2002 stats, the NL averaged 55 hit batters per team, the AL 61. Not a huge difference–one batter every 27 games. Especially since the AL includes the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who led MLB with 94 of their batters hit. Why in god’s name anybody would bother to throw at the Devil Rays is beyond me.
So are you telling me that AL pitchers have such better control that they can headhunt and end up with essentially the same number of total plunks?
I should add:
For 2001, the AL is a good bit higher than the NL.
For 2000, the AL is well below the NL.
To me, this says plunkings–both intentional and not–occur at the same rate in both leagues. So unless you’re going to argue that AL pitchers somehow manage to hit fewer batters accidentally than NL pitchers, I think the stats back me up.
Is it not SOP in the NL for a pitcher to hit the 1st batter he faces after one of HIS players is beaned?
I thought it was like that in either league, spooje.
Yes, the stats back you up overall, Myrr21. You take your average AL pitcher, even one with a headhunting reputation, and throw him in the NL, and he probably won’t change much, if at all.
Pedro may be a special case, however, if only because he’s a lot scrawnier than most players. May.
Well, overall Pedro has hit batters slightly more often in the AL than the NL (one batter every 23 innings vs 19). However, his worst seasons–for that stat–were the same: 1 batter every 13 innings. Moreover, in the season after his worst in each case, he actually hit fewer in the AL than NL, suggesting that opposing pitchers didn’t “teach him a lesson”.
So, it’s pretty much a wash statistically for him.
Not exactly. Sometimes teams will use a sense of parity in deciding whom to plunk. For example, you hit our star player, we’re going to hit your star player. Or, you hit our shortstop, we’re going to hit your shortstop. Or sometimes they plunk the pitcher.
Of course, this rarely happens anymore, since any suspicious hit batsmen is usually immediately followed by a warning to both benches that ejections will follow another suspicious pitch, so the other team is largely prohibited from retaliating.
Interesting column by Bob Klapisch on ESPN.com about two ex-Yankees and how they feel about the whole mess:
Interesting and funny in spots. But remember, these are ex-players, so of course their viewpoints are somewhat colored…
What really gets me in this thread and the related one are the people who keep saying that Zimmer was incapable of hurting Martinez just because he’s 72 years old and fat. Ridiculous. Either you have little to no actual experience with people over the age of 60, or you are allowing your desire to demonize Martinez even more to blind you to reality. My father is 69 years old, out of shape, was never a professional athelete, and is by nature a peaceful person. However, if he somehow became enraged enough to attack you, you would ignore him at your peril.
That having been said, it was nice to see that Zimmer had the class to publicly apologize for his actions. And while I don’t condone those actions, considering his personal experience I can understand them.