Comments on: Guillermo Mota Throws at Prince Fielder, Brings Back Piazza Memories

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 27 May 2011 17:28:00 +0000

I think you’re missing the core point here. I pay to see brains and skill overcome brains and skill. If a batter is good enough to hit a pitcher’s best offering he shouldn’t be thrown at because he hit the ball 500 feet. I mean, if a pitcher with superior stuff strikes a batter out, that batter has no recourse except to try and overcome that pitcher’s talent by making the necessary adjustments in his next at-bat. PERIOD. He isn’t allowed to come after the pitcher with his bat–he has to use his God given talent and nothing else. This time honored double standard of pitchers being able to intimidate hitters who are good enough to beat them by throwing at them is isn’t just illogical and dumb. If it WERE then I’d simply ignore it like I do so many other stupid assed remarks that professional commentators make in their columns and post game write-ups. But if you’ll recall, Carl Mays killed a guy (Ray Chapman) when one of his pitches hit him in the head. And before you rush to the defense of the pitcher by claiming that it was an accident (as so many sportswriters do, just think for a moment about how much more likely it would be for a serious injury to occur if the inside pitch was INTENTIONAL…Baseball, basketball and the all other “team” endeavors ought to be about sportsmanship–acknowledging the superiority of your opponent if you simply don’t have what it takes to overcome them by normal means, and coming back the next time with better strategies that may succeed. Very early in Mark Mcgwire’s career I saw a game up in Oakland against Seattle where Mark hit a ball about three miles off of Randy Johnson. As he rounded third in his homerun trot I say Johnson tip his cap to Mark in a sign of respect and Mark politely tipped his own cap and pointed back in a sign of mutual respect and quietly jogged back to the A’s dugout….THAT’S what I want to see from the athletes I root for–not an escalating bean ball war of retaliation because some idiot pitcher is allowed to follow an unwritten 100 year old rule that has shortened the careers of thousands of hitters whenever his “stuff” isn’t good enough to get a hitter out…

Incidentally, Johnson struck McGwire out three times that day following that homerun…

Clifford

Santa Monica
nimaste@verizon.net

By: Jeff J

Jeff J — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:21:20 +0000

So is there no way Torre called for him to hit Fielder?

By: Gene

Gene — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 21:56:04 +0000

What Mota did was cowardly and stupid. You don’t throw at someone when you are up by 13 runs and there are two outs in the 9th, and you don’t throw an off speed pitch to achieve the desired result. Mota relishes hitting batters. Notice how Mota left the field without disputing the ejection. He probably couldn’t wait to get to the safety of the clubhouse. Mota does this crap all the time, the Piazza incidents clearly show.

If the Dodgers were looking to retaliate, it would have been done the next day during a meaningful encounter, maybe when there were two outs and nobody on. This way, it loses a lot of the message they were trying to get across to the whole NL, because their most cowardly pitcher did the retaliation act during the least important part of the game, and quickly disappeared into the dugout to avoid further confrontation.

By: Jeff J

Jeff J — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:18:50 +0000

I have to agree with John on this one. You don’t think Mota on his own decided to throw at him? Every move a player makes comes from the dugout, especially something like this. The picture of Macca above with his hands outstretched in surprise is so funny because he knows the game just as well as anybody.

I’m pissed they hit Manny because the way he was hitting last night, he would have probably hit another one out of the park.

By: John

John — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:12:25 +0000

He pretty clearly didn’t just throw at Fielder because Fielder was better than him. He threw at Fielder because the Brewers threw at Manny. If the Brewers throw at Manny, someone’s gotta retaliate.

Mota isn’t a pussy… he’s a teammate. If the Dodgers had thrown at Fielder first, you’d definitely see a Dodger get hit and this whole thing could be turned around. This happens every week in baseball. Just because two of the batters Mota faced were overly angry about it doesn’t change the fact that this is just a common occurrence, and possibly the only manly thing about baseball.

By: anders(on) Varejao

anders(on) Varejao — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:25:35 +0000

I’m just glad this team is standing up for their slugger unlike last year against the Phillies in the playoffs.

Even though the pitch barely grazed Manny, (I actually didn’t think it hit him) he got hit a couple weeks ago and was not happy.

Here’s the thing though, regardless of whether hitting batters is a good or bad thing, shouldn’t it be kept on the field? Shouldn’t Prince’s reaction be to tell his guys to hit Manny in the 1st inning tomorrow?

Mota does seem to be a magnet for this stuff though. I would run away from Prince Fielder and MIke Piazza too. Those dudes are scary.