Nope, no cites that specific-- “batsmen hit in the head” isn’t an official statistic.
I’m not condoning Clemens’ horrific treatment of Piazza. I can kind of see him freaking out seeing a bat coming towards him and flinging it in some mentally-unbalanced version of “self-defense”, but Clemens isn’t the issue here, really.
(Aside: I can also see Eric Byrnes of Oakland freaking out the same way-- I can imagine him sliding into Varitek during the infamous ALDS game 3 sequence, figuring the play was finished one way or another, getting hurt, getting up and imagining that Varitek was rushing him after a hard slide instead of getting the ball. So Byrnes shoves Varitek and still doesn’t realize the play isn’t over yet…)
While Clemens may or may not be a dork, he only hits batters at a league-average rate relative to his walks. Pedro unquestionably hits players much more often than might be expected from his walk rate. That suggests that he hits them on purpose.
Actually, that’s a really good point. I couldn’t figure out why he would think to shove the catcher, but not realize the ball was still in play. That makes sense.
Well, we can both watch the replay closely tonight - we remember it quite differently.
asrivkin, interesting stats, nice work. You piqued my curiousity. Here are the career stats for two of the more renowned “message” pitchers:
Bob Gibson 13.1 bb per hpb, 38.1 ip per hbp, 2.9 ip per bb
Sal Maglie 12.8 bb per hpb, 39.2 ip per hbp, 3.1 ip per bb
Neither of them come anywhere near Martinez or Clemens for hitting people. Each of them had one year early in their career at about 1 hbp every 20 innings or so, which must have gained them their reps. (And in Maglie’s case, a nickname.) Now is this because they batted, or because batters didn’t wear armor or dig in like they do now? Anyway, like I said, interesting.
$10,000 is absolutely NOTHING in relation to Pedro Martinez’s 2003 salary, not counting bonuses and incentives, as well as playoff pay.
The money would not go to Zimmer directly. It would be a symbolic gesture.
The fine, though highly unlikely, is not unrealistic.
Now quit being such a loser asshole and making empty threats that you have absolutely no intention whatsoever of following through on while hiding behind the annonymity of a message board.:rolleyes:
I will. If I see your point, I will let you know, seriously. But as I said, wasn’t questionable at all in my mind when I saw it last night, and I am not a Yankee homer with that bias. If anything, I’m like most of the country (outside of NY and Florida) who would have found a Cubs-Sox Series a pretty cool event.
I have seen multiple interpretations of Pedro’s head gesture. The commentators seemed to think he was mouthing something on the lines of “I will get you in the head”. Any conclusive evidence on what exactly he was trying to say?
IANA Lipreader, but I still read it as “I would hit you in the fucking head”, with something else coming before it. My guess would be that it was “If I was going to hit you in the head,”.
Pedro: I think he was trying to hit Garcia. It’s possible that the pitch just got away from him (he’d just lost the lead and must have been very frustrated and out of his game), and I guess we’ll never know for sure, but I think it’s more likely he was trying to hit him considering where the pitch wound up. He may even have been trying to brain him. Despicable.
On the other hand, I can’t fault him for what happened to Zimmer. First, Martinez was being attacked (by someone who was way out of his weight class, by the way). Zimmer was charging at him. The only way he could have completely dodged Zimmer would have been to run away from him, and that’s just not realistic. What he did was a dodge with contact – looking at the replay, he did not throw Zimmer to the ground. Zimmer was charging him, Martinez grabbed his head (the nearest part of Zim’s body) and pushed him to the right (thus pushing himself to the left and out of the way). Zim lost his balance (big surprise) and his own momentum caused him to hit the ground fast and hard (300 lbs. running at full tilt generates a lot of force).
I’d be truly rattled if I were suddenly attacked by a troll coming out of the dugout – kudos to Martinez for having enough sense not to take a swing at him. Zimmer: If you’re a fat, old man who’s dumb enough to violently attack a 30 year old athlete in the middle of a baseball game, and all that happens is that you fall to the ground, then you got off light. I can understand that headhunting is a touchy subject for Zim, but violent stupidty with provocation is still violent stupidity. He’s a grown man who deserved everything he got and more. Ramirez: Acted stupid but, as has been pointed out, might not have realized by how far the pitch missed him. Garcia: His slide into second was gratuitous, but even Todd Walked doesn’t blame him for it given the fact that he’d just had a ball thrown behind his head. Clemens: Blameless, unfortunately. Jeff Nelson, Garcia (again), and the Red Sox groundskeeper: No way of knowing what happened, at least not yet.
I got the replay on tape from the NL pre-game show. (I’m watching the Broncos; it’s halftime.) I’ve watched it a few times.
I’m wrong.
The pitch was much higher than I remembered it, and from its location and Martinez’ reaction, I believe I’m wrong about him throwing at Garcia as well. So add Martinez to the list of dumb shits. I think I’ve got everyone on it now.
Enough about Pedro and Zimmer: I want to know why the fuck John Henry let that no-talent loser skank J. Lo–a goddamned Yankee fan–sit in his seat last night. That was just plain wrong and both he and that jerkoff Ben Affleck should be banished from Red Sox Nation for this transgression. What a couple of :wally :wally .
I think its’ mostly all been said in this thread. I must address this though:
Apparently Pedro Martinez is the secret identity of the Flash and he has the ability to transfer his speed to objects such as baseballs.
Nitpick: In his younger days, maybe, but now he tops out at the mid 90s. Still ball speed != leg speed. If so Curt Schilling would be going to Athens in 2004 and Carl Lewis would be pitching for the Braves. Ball speed might equal arm speed/strength though. Zimmer is just lucky he didn’t catch a right hook in his second through fouth chins. Its’ baseball. Its’ a part of the culture. Apparently that wisdom didn’t come to him and he’s lucky today, very lucky.
Thanks for the compliment. I don’t quite have the data in a useful form, just a chart (and I’m too lazy to compile the numbers from scratch), but it looks like HBP for the leagues tracked each other closely until suspiciously close to 1973, when the DH came in. Since then (until the chart runs out around 1995) the AL had quite a bit more HBP. It looks like it’s more than you’d expect simply from having more teams, which they did for most of that period. It looks like there was a minimum around the 1920s-1930s and it’s been moving up since then, reaching historic levels as of the mid-90s. Maybe the addition of batting helmets (and armor) has helped the increase. I seem to remember Bill James doing something on this once-- I can try and look it up.
It’s been playing out interestingly here in Boston (where I live). Zimmer’s apologized in tears. There’ve been somewhat pointed comments by both Red Sox staff and Johnny Damon (at least) that they’d like to see someone from the Sox apologize, too-- it’s unclear if they mean Martinez (presumably) or Ramirez (or both). The bullpen thing is no clearer. Boston.com has the police report posted, which sounds pretty bad for Nelson and Garcia. The mayor has called for their arrests, presumably on Tuesday. We’ll see. Meanwhile, Nelson continues to assert his innocence. And the cops are looking for witnesses…
Oh, this isn’t much of a flame. How about this: Why does the Mexican food suck in this town?
You think Pedro wouldn’t hit guys if he was in the National League? He was in the National League for 6 years!!!
Pedro became the dominant pitcher he is today while pitching in Montreal, where he spent 4 seasons. He hit a number of guys there. And he was, himself, hit by pitched balls as well.
And who was the biggest head-hunter off all fucking time???
DON DRYSDALE!!! And he played his entire career before the DH.
Kevin Brown, who has hit more guys than Pedro, has hit more guys since coming to National League. Randy Johnson has hit a bunch of guys (18 in 2001, that’s a LOT for a season) since coming to the NL. And Clemens would still hit guys if came to the NL
These guys HAVE to pitch inside to be succesful. They will have to brush guys off the plate. They will have to hit the occasional batter. Sometimes on purpose. It’s a part of the game. It’s ALWAYS been a part of the game.
When Boston beat Oakland, I said the upcoming Yankees-Sox series was going to be a war.
By that, I was merely employing a colorful metaphor to describe the probable intensity of the series. I did not seriously think I was predicting a replay of the pointless mutual-destruction conflict between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s. Unfortunately, it appears that’s what we’ve got.
Well, I can only hope that the Yankees decide to have Nelson pitch before he’s arrested, given his recent (lack of) performance. I wonder if he maybe didn’t flip out when the groundskeeper joined in on a “we want Nelson” cheer. I mean, just rooting for your team shouldn’t be enough to get yourself jumped, but I can imagine that would be.
Anna’s Tacqueria is pretty good. Especially after a long night drinking.
Is it “sound baseball reasoning” to throw a wild pitch with a runner on third? If Karim dodges the pitch, that ball is at the backstop and the runner scores.
If Pedro was throwing at his head, it is despicable. But I’m not convinced he was. Regardless, he absolutely did the right thing when Zimmer charged him.
