Major League Baseball

Beanball wars aren't what they used to be

Published Aug. 11, 2009 11:35 p.m. ET

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Used to be the players would take care of their own beanball wars.

And they did it with a lot more oomph than the half-hearted, postgame "charge" Milwaukee first baseman Prince Fielder staged toward the Dodgers clubhouse after he was hit on the right thigh by a pitch thrown by Los Angeles reliever Guillermo Mota last week.




In recent years, however, players have had the ability to take care of matters on their own stripped away by upper management. The upshot is a whole lot of weak-acted moments of machismo that do little other than get players suspended and fined.

Now if the fine money were to be used to subsidize revenue sharing and help out the needy teams, maybe it would have some merit, but that's a subject for another day.

Baseball has spent so much time trying to shove the beanball wars out of the public vision that it has made a spectacle out it, the game suffering a black eye while players rarely even connect with each other.

"They don't understand how the game was played," said Colorado Rockies hitting coach Don Baylor. "The rules have changed and it has taken away aggressiveness from the brushback or breaking up the double play. When players were able to handle it themselves it was taken care of. Umpires weren't put in the middle of things. There weren't warnings. And there wasn't a lot of public posturing."

Now, as if the Fielder fiasco wasn't silly enough, loose cannon White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen took time out on Sunday to announce that if feels one of his players is purposely hit by a pitch, he'll have two players on the other team hit in retaliation. Remember, the bigger the bark the smaller the bite.

"What happens now is a warning is given out, which means the situation isn't taken care of," said Baylor. "Then the situation festers, and the emotions get out of hand."

Blame it on money.

St. Louis hitting coach Hal McRae does.

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