Baseball has its share of action every season. While we see the same things repeatedly through the years, sometimes new things become more prevalent. One such thing this season is hit batters.
Fans may not think much of this as the batter automatically takes first base for their team, but the experience of being hit by a major league fastball is quite painful for the baseball players. No one could easily take a pitch of the sort, especially depending upon where it’s been thrown.
This year (2009) there have been a ton of batters hit by pitches, some resulting in injuries, ejections, fines, and the occasional fight/revenge. Most of the time when a batter is hit it is because the pitcher lost control of the pitch but then there is always the reason of taking out the other team’s players or rivalry.
This year, hundreds of batters have been hit by pitches, some more remembered than others such as Scott Rolen getting struck in the head by a pitch, injuring him for more than a couple days. And then there’s the time the pitch was thrown at Dustin Pedroia’s head and he ducked and it missed him, but then the next pitch was placed right below that and beamed him in the side.
Another more recent incident that riled up baseball fans was Prince Fielder’s hit by pitch situation. The Brewers led the Dodgers 17-4 late in a meaningless game, and Manny Ramirez was hit by a pitcher for the Brewers.
The next inning, still a 17-4 blowout, Fielder stepped up to bat and was immediately struck in the side by a pitch by former teammate Guillermo Mota. Fielder remained calm and took his base but after the game he charged the Dodgers club house hoping to find a certain pitcher for some revenge. The only thing in his way was a small security guard that looked like he was gonna cry, but luckily some of his teamates convinced him to back off, and the little security guard called for about 6 more little guys.
This isn’t the first time that a player has sought out Mota after the end of a game, and many believe that Mota’s act was intentional. Fielder clearly thought this too, as he hadn’t reacted this way during any of his other 7 hit by pitch situations in 2009.
Based on my knowledge of the situation I agree with what Fielder did and think that by fighting back on some of the intentional ones there would be less players hit by a pitch. Now due to Fielder’s outburst they have nine security guards outside the Dodgers clubhouse.
