ChiSox rookie refuses to hit Blalock

[Bears_16_and_0]

Re: ChiSox rookie refuses to hit Blalock

so its ok to hit AJ because you guys dont like him but its not ok for the sox to hit someone, or for ozzie to yell at one of his own players?

[Psyblast]

Re: ChiSox rookie refuses to hit Blalock

so its ok to hit AJ because you guys dont like him but its not ok for the sox to hit someone, or for ozzie to yell at one of his own players?

Yeah, that's EXACTLY what we've said in this thread.

[Beantown]

Re: ChiSox rookie refuses to hit Blalock

I don't remember saying anything about hitting AJ, to be perfectly honest.

Dice said we all hate the White Sox because they won the World Series last year...and I was just telling him otherwise.

I respect the WS because they won the WS last year...if they hadn't I'd hate them even moreso than I do.

[shugknight]

Re: ChiSox rookie refuses to hit Blalock

I really dont see what the fuss is all about. The guy was specifically put in to hit Blalock. He didn't hit him. Which means he didn't do his job.

Yes morally, intentionally hitting somebody is wrong, but this is baseball. This is a GOLDEN RULE. When your teammate is getting attacked, you attack back. You stick up for your teammate/team. By not going after Blalock (in terms of trying to bean him) you're not only letting the GM down, but your letting the whole team down.

How can you expect to have the support from your teammate if you can't back them up? It's done almost everyday in baseball. If you bean a player, just for the hell of it, there better be some retaliation. Whether it'd be a hard slide, pitch inside, whatever! Key thing is, you have to stick up for your teammates, so in the future, teams will know that if they intentionally bean a Sox player, there will be payback.

I really dont see whats so hard to understand? If you're a REAL baseball player/fan, you know whats suppose to happen.

[Briman123]

Re: ChiSox rookie refuses to hit Blalock

I really dont see what the fuss is all about. The guy was specifically put in to hit Blalock. He didn't hit him. Which means he didn't do his job.

Yes morally, intentionally hitting somebody is wrong, but this is baseball. This is a GOLDEN RULE. When your teammate is getting attacked, you attack back. You stick up for your teammate/team. By not going after Blalock (in terms of trying to bean him) you're not only letting the GM down, but your letting the whole team down.

How can you expect to have the support from your teammate if you can't back them up? It's done almost everyday in baseball. If you bean a player, just for the hell of it, there better be some retaliation. Whether it'd be a hard slide, pitch inside, whatever! Key thing is, you have to stick up for your teammates, so in the future, teams will know that if they intentionally bean a Sox player, there will be payback.

I really dont see whats so hard to understand? If you're a REAL baseball player/fan, you know whats suppose to happen.

So if you were a rookie AAA pitcher you would follow Guillen orders and beam Hank Blalock? I'm sure alot of thoughts were rushing through his head and last second he just threw those 2 inside pitches... As mentioned it should of been a veteren to beam Hank.

[CWood2]

Re: ChiSox rookie refuses to hit Blalock

I really dont see whats so hard to understand? If you're a REAL baseball player/fan, you know whats suppose to happen.

No one is defending him for not executing what we all know he needed to do. And maybe the earful he got after was worse than most teams because of who was doing the talking. But to demote the guy is just asking for a grievance to be filed, especially with the awful excuse Ozzie tried to come up with after.

[Bears_16_and_0]

Re: ChiSox rookie refuses to hit Blalock

first of all its bean. Also, due to the idiotic way that the warnings are issued any pitcher that hits a batter is thrown out and subject to a suspension. The kid was going back down to the minors very soon anyway, at the very latest when cliff polite comes off the DL which he could do on tuesday. It isn't a matter of the kid not wanting to be fined either because there is no way he would have had to pay the fine himself. Whether the team or other players are allowed to pay someones fine for him or not, it would have been done. AJ probably would have paid for it himself. You couldn't have put the team in a hole if Vazquez were to be suspended but at the same time you have to protect your players.

Well, after all this hoopla the benches we're both warned prior to the start of this game, so it looks like ozzie accomplished what he wanted to. If ozzie would have just pulled the kid and not ranted in the dugout i doubt there would have been warnings today. Ozzie wasn't probably thinking that at the time, but its funny how it sorta ended up working out anyway

[mjb2124]

Re: ChiSox rookie refuses to hit Blalock

I really dont see whats so hard to understand? If you're a REAL baseball player/fan, you know whats suppose to happen.

A REAL baseball fan also knows that you don't put a rookie in to do that job.

[Dice]

Re: ChiSox rookie refuses to hit Blalock

An interesting article by Gregg Couch in this morning's edition in the Chicago Suntimes about the history of manager's telling their players to bean players. Here is a clip from the article while talking to Goose Gossage about Billy Martin asking him to bean someone in a spring training game:

Gossage recalled his first spring training with the New York Yankees, 1978, when he barley had spoken with his new manager, Billy Martin.

"He says, 'I want you to hit that blankety-blank Billy Sample in the head,'" Goosage said. "I throw 100 miles an hour. If I hit him in the head, it'll kill him. Martin says, 'I don't care if you do kill him.'

"I said I wasn't going to hit him, and Martin says, 'You're telling me you're not going to do it?' He hated me from then on."

Here is a clip from the article about former Cy Young pitcher Steve Stone about being ordered to hitting a batter:

Former Cy Young Award winner Steve Stone had a similar experience. In spring training, his pitching coach told him to hit the first batter he faced. It turned out to be George Scott, a mammoth-sized man.

"I told [the coach] that I don't have a problem with Scott," Stone said. "And I don't think I can outrun him. So he put it in his book that I refused to hit George Scott. At the end of the year, they let me go and said they didn't think I was tough enough to make it in the majors."

Now as I read the article it says that both picthers have acknowledged that they did hit players on purpose. Here is a clip of Goosage talking about an incident against the Orioles:

Goosage told of a time against the Baltimore Orioles when Yankees second basemen Willie Randolph was knocked all the way into the outfield on a routine double play. Goosage, who wasn't pitching at the time, vowed to retaliate.

Several weeks later, he faced the Orioles, and "I drilled Al Bumbry in the hip. I thought he was dead. And that was the end of it. I came to the dugout, and Willie very quietly came over and said, 'Hey, thanks a lot, man.'"

Now very much interesting about this is Goosage is against the way umpires of today don't allow pitchers to pitch inside without giving them a warning. He calls it "a joke". And Gossage continues by saying, " How could Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa have hit all those homers that year [1998] without being hit by a pitch? Did you ever see either one of them get knocked down?"

Well, that statement isn't entirely true. In 98 Sosa did get hit only one time. BUT McGwire got hit 6 times that year. BUT I do see his point.

[poster]

Re: ChiSox rookie refuses to hit Blalock

I really think Ozzie is an excellent baseball manager. In this case I think he has proved his rep as a jerk. Today on the radio I heard that he threw AJ under the bus saying he should have charged the mound. At the same time he brings in a rookie to do this dirty work instead of leaving Vasquez(the proven veteran who has been through something like this) in to do it.

So he basically says his catcher should be tough enough as to go fight the pitcher, but he acts like a ***** and brings in a little rookie to do the dirty work on the other end. What a tough guy.

His catcher should take a suspension, but his starting pitcher(who's start would get pushed back a day after his 5 game suspension) shouldn't?

Is Mark Buherle a *****? He didn't retaliate yesterday. The Sox need to stand up for AJ if they want this to stop. He sent the message to teams that all they will do to retaliate is talk ish in the media, or send a rook with no MLB experience in there to try to do the job. Have the guts to put a man in there to do the job or STFU.

[thenbagamer]

Re: ChiSox rookie refuses to hit Blalock

this is so stupid

[GBrushTWood]

Re: ChiSox rookie refuses to hit Blalock

this is so stupid

Srsly. It's just meatheaded jock chest thumping. This may be the closest thing to cavemen bashing each other over the heads with clubs.

I didn't read this whole thread, but I think it's worth noting that the rookie pitcher was optioned back to AAA because the White Sox made a trade for David Riske, not because it was his punishment. At least, that's what I think the case is.

[Jistic]

Re: ChiSox rookie refuses to hit Blalock

Ozzie Guillen is nothing more than punk. Always has been as a player and a manager. The stuff he says is so stupid sometimes. But our lame local media love him. Hey what crazy stuff is Ozzie saying today!?

[Dice]

Re: ChiSox rookie refuses to hit Blalock

I really think Ozzie is an excellent baseball manager. In this case I think he has proved his rep as a jerk. Today on the radio I heard that he threw AJ under the bus saying he should have charged the mound. At the same time he brings in a rookie to do this dirty work instead of leaving Vasquez(the proven veteran who has been through something like this) in to do it.

So he basically says his catcher should be tough enough as to go fight the pitcher, but he acts like a ***** and brings in a little rookie to do the dirty work on the other end. What a tough guy.

His catcher should take a suspension, but his starting pitcher(who's start would get pushed back a day after his 5 game suspension) shouldn't?

Is Mark Buherle a *****? He didn't retaliate yesterday. The Sox need to stand up for AJ if they want this to stop. He sent the message to teams that all they will do to retaliate is talk ish in the media, or send a rook with no MLB experience in there to try to do the job. Have the guts to put a man in there to do the job or STFU.

Ozzie has a point. Maybe AJ should have charged the mound instead of putting him in that situation to have a rookie pitcher bean a batter.

BUT Ozzie didn't want Vasquez to do it was because it was the 4th inning and Ozzie didn't want to use the bullpen early. Because when AJ got hit thats when the ump issued warnings for both team, which to me was not fair because the Sox didn't do anything at that point. So once the warning was issued Vasquez not only would have been kicked out of the game BUT served a suspension. Which the White Sox don't need right now.

And for yesterday's game, a warning was issued before the game started so Buherle couldn't do it because he'd also be under the threat of a suspension. That why he wanted the rookie to do it.

I always thought the old saying was, "Take one for the team." I guess it doesn't apply anymore.

[Dice]

Re: ChiSox rookie refuses to hit Blalock

Ozzie Guillen is nothing more than punk. Always has been as a player and a manager. The stuff he says is so stupid sometimes. But our lame local media love him. Hey what crazy stuff is Ozzie saying today!?

You just have to face facts. When you win the World Series you can talk as much and as loud as you can until someone knocks you off.

It's funny, I had a conversation with a Cubs fan about this and he says if Dusty was making the same remarks he'd be fired. DUH! Of course, because when your team is 13 games out of first and 13 games under .500 then you just need to shut up and try to talk to your team about playing better.

And it's obvious Ozzie wouln't have been doing this much talking if he didn't win it all last year. And Ozzie realize once his team stops winning then he'll tone it down.