Baseball notes from february 2015

my proposed tt comment for this thread

---

"Although even at major-league level, catchers only call what manager/coach signals from bench."

That's lame.

Do you think Sal "The Barber" Maglie waited to be told when to rifle some chin music?

... appeared to show the catcher put down his middle finger in a signal to the pitcher, which appeared to be a signal to hit the batter. The other photo shows the ball heading toward the batter.

That sounds like good old fashioned baseball. What's the problem? What was the context? Was it payback for something that happened in another sport? Was the batter being a goof? Was the batter too close to the plate?

Is the brushback pitch frowned upon today? In olden days, a good pitcher wouldn't need to be told to close-shave or plunk a jagoff batter. He just put the batter on the ground. The cocky shits deserved it.

Our high school baseball coach never ordered a pitcher to plunk a batter. The plunkings were decided by the pitcher, sometimes after consulting with the rest of us.

The situation would have be right. Two out, nobody on, and the turdstick comes up to the plate. We knew what was coming next. Bam. Beanball. The hard part as a first baseman was not laughing. I'd give the old fake concern, "Are you okay?"

Not all close-shaves or plunkings are created equal. Sometimes, the high and tight pitch is simply meant to make the batter feel uncomfortable. On rare occasions, it's truly meant to put the guy on his ass.

I suppose high school players today can't slide at an opponent around second base to break up the double play. But then again, without metal cleats, that play loses it edge.

#sports #baseball