Pacifist Pitcher Sent Packing
By Benjy Lipsman in News on Jun 15, 2006 5:55PM
Chicagoist is as old school as anyone when it comes to baseball. We like the Wrigley Field scoreboard manual, don't eat any ballpark entree that doesn't belong to the hot dog family, and we miss the days when players wore stirrups. But we've never been a fan of the often childish "unwritten rules" that baseball players and teams follow.
One we particularly hate is the whole game of retaliation when a batter is brushed back or hit by a pitch. It's childish, it only escalates things between the team, and it's dangerous for the batters! So we feel for rookie pitcher Sean Tracey, who yesterday was yanked from the game and berated by Guillen in the dugout after not following through with instructions to hit a batter.
Texas Rangers starting pitcher Vicente Padilla hit Sox catcher A.J "Trouble Finds Me" Pierzynski with a pitch in both the 2nd and 4th innings. In the 7th inning, Guillen sent Tracey into the game with instructions to retaliate by plunking Hank Blaylock. After thowning one sort-of-inside pitch and then getting Blaylock to ground out, Guillen pulled his pitcher and chewed him out in the dugout. The ">Trib notes, "Television cameras caught Guillen yelling at Tracey in the dugout ... Tracey buried his head in his hands before covering his face with his jersey, and Guillen was shown spiking a bottle of water." The team then sent him back to the minors following the game.
We're clearly in the minority according to ESPN's poll on the topic, but we're fine with that. We want to know why the ump didn't immediately toss Padilla after hitting the same guy twice. Sure, guys get hit with pitches in baseball by accident, but the same batter twice? Clearly Padilla should have been tossed. Major League Baseball needs to get the umps to keep the games under control. The players should worry about trying to win the game on the field, not dishing out vigilante justice. To instruct a rookie to do just that, and then demote him as punishment, is out of line.