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Pitching inside is a legitimate strategy
but hitting the batter on purpose isn't
posted by
jollyjeff
on May 1, 2006 at 9:52 AM
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Pitchers have been hitting batters for years. The pitcher has to be able to use the whole plate or hitters will have an unfair advantage. Sometimes a pitch will stray too far inside just as a pitch will stray too far outside, because pitchers are human. A pitcher just can't let a hitter get too comfortable up there. When I caught, I used to sometimes hold my mitt right behind the hitters head to show the pitcher where I wanted it. And more often then not, the hitter would swing and strike out. We called it "H and H". The high hard one. Now the way that you send a message to a batter is to throw it OVER his head back to the screen. It's just a throw away and no one can prove that you were throwing at the hitter, because, well, you're not. I taught this trick to my nephew, because he wasn't very fast and didn't really have a good curveball. But he had pinpoint control and a great changeup and sinker. Whenever he felt the other teams hitters were getting too comfortable ZOOM. Straight to the backstop. And no one ever retaliated when he came to the plate, because they weren't sure that maybe the next time he would plunk them. After that message pitch, he owned them.
posted by
growler
on April 29, 2006 at 1:02 PM
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