because he hit someone in the stands. AND, even if he would have hit someone in the dugout, it's not the same...like someone else said, the batter has a helmet in the batters box, not in the dugout. i can't believe you are defending him. that guy is nothing but a coward, if he wants to fight, drop the gloves and fight, don't use a weapon. what if someone had brought a bat out of the dugout...would that have been ok by you?
because the batter is 100 % aware of the baseball coming in his general direction. He is focused on the pitcher and his eye is on the ball from the moment of release. In the dugout when play is stopped, the last thing you expect is a baseball to come at you. And chances are the players/fans weren''t even LOOKING at the pitcher who chucked it. They were watching the shoving match going on instead. Which leaves you with zero reaction time.
I can't believe you can not put into context what I said. I have said in each post I made that the dude was 1,000% in the wrong and I agree with any suspension baseball gives to him. I just said that I think when pitchers throw at batters inside of the game that it is not punished as heavily as it should be. If I shoot someone, it's the same crime whether they are looking or not and whether they are expecting it or not.
Sometimes, it's tough to prove the pitcher's intent when it goes inside to a batter. Hard to deny what this guy's intention was.
The batter doesn't own the plate. Sometimes the pitcher needs to "point that out". You would have cried like a little girl in the 50s and 60s.
