To beam or not to beam?
Question:Last night May 16th St. Louis Cardinals announcer and former relief pitcher made the comment that Cardinals pitcher Kip Wells should hit LA Dodger short stop Rafeal Furcal with a pitch. Kip didn't hit Furcal who by the way Rafeal was 15 for his last 16! But, do you think that any one is or would be offended by Mr. Hrabosky's comments if they heard them? Do you think Mr. Hrabosky would be under some fire had Kip Wells really hit Rafeal? In the head?
Hey, Charlie Manson is in jail for suggestion!
Answers:
How many of you are baseball fans?
In baseball, espicially pro baseball, it is acceptable and expected to bean guys in certain situations. A proper beaning is a fastball to the back. Not an all out fastball, but one that will sting. It is never up towards the head. It is thrown in such a way that the batter can't get out of the way, but has time to turn and take it in the back.I'm not sure why the announcer was saying furcal should have been beaned but often times the following actions would bring that about:
-the dodgers' pitcher beaned a cardinal for no reason
-furcal had done something to show up the cardinals (ie took too long admiring a homerun)
Those are the two main reasons. an example of this was the yankees/devil rays (i think) last month. A yankee player plowed over the DRay's catcher when there wasn't a play at the plate. When he came up next, he got hit. He knew he deserved it, so he just took his base. Apparantly a yankee relief pitcher didn't know about the play at the plate and beaned a DRay hitter a couple innings later. Because this was unwarrented, the DRay's were rightfully angry and the bullpens emptied. Fun times.
1st of all it's bean, not beam. Baseball is different, unless he specifically suggested to hit him in the head, no there is not a problem backing a hot hitter off the plate by hitting him. In fact Furcal was probably expecting it!
Is Kei Igawa still in the rotation?
Yes. He should hit Barry Bonds.More Questions & Answers...