I apologize for the tone of my last reply. It was not deserved on your part.
I don’t think it is swell, I think it is and always has been a part of the game. Did Parra “deserve” to be hit - maybe, maybe not. I saw the highlights of the previous game on ESPN and I did watch the game in question. Parra had hit a double off Kershaw in his first at bat. Kershaw was moving him off the plate in the at bat in question and delivering a message at the same time. He was not headhunting. That is a different pitch entirely.
Don’t know about clothslining in football, never played football. But in baseball for as long as it has been played pitchers insist on owning the plate and when a batter gets his hands out over the plate he will get knocked back with an inside pitch. And sometimes there are payback pitches for other things as well. That’s what umpire warnings are for, no one - not even anyone in the stands - mistakes those. As the umpire will walk from behind the plate point to the pitcher and then point to each dugout. That is what should have happened in that spot. If Kershaw had thrown behind Parra or thrown up and in then he should have been ejected. But not for a down and in pitch.
Well done. I wish more of us would be willing to follow-up like that (including me). Kudos.
Accepted, thanks.
I watch AZ baseball, I live near Phoenix, so I saw ALL of both games. Maybe I’m biased, but if one of our pitchers had done the same thing I’d feel the same way.
In the first game, the pitcher aimed a fast ball straight at Parra’s head, and he had to leap out of the box to keep from getting a concussion...it was that bad. Was that part of the game? Sure it was, he wanted to get Parra to swing at an outside ball next pitch. Happens all the time. Well, it POed Parra, and when the pitcher made the mistake of a hanging curve ball, Parra kissed it out of the park. He did maybe a bit too much celebrating on his run of the bases for making the pitcher pay with a homer.
The Dodgers bench went mad. The catcher almost took a swing at Parra as he cleared the plate (twice that game as it turned out). During the shouting, the loudest and most profane was Kershaw, who hollered (among other choice words that should not be said in front of children) “I’m pitching against you tomorrow. *I’ll get you!*” With that overt threat of payback, Kershaw WARNED HIMSELF that he would get the hook for *one* HBP on Parra. I half-expected the benches to clear right there.
The next night, Gibson played Parra. After Kershaw played enough innings to assure a win, he drilled Parra early in the count. Parra wasn’t crowding the plate at all, and Kershaw is a Cy Award possibility because he’s damned good at controlling the ball. There was plenty of room for an inside pitch without hitting Parra, but hit him he did. After the kerfluffle the night before where Kershaw publicly threatened to hit Parra, this was as obviously premeditated as it gets. MLB had warned the Umpires, and the Umpires warned Kershaw before the game that a deliberate HBP on Parra would result in ejection.
This isn’t football, it’s baseball.
Somehow, everybody thinks Kershaw was allowed one free hit on the batter. If Kershaw had not been ejected, I can guarantee there would have been plenty of HBP from both sides before that game was over. A bomb was diffused, and Kershaw was the one to bite it because he threw the first punch, after threatening to do so to boot! Maybe Parra should have been given one free roundhouse left to Kershaw’s chops instead?