Thursday, July 03, 2008

How to Charge the Mound

Since tomorrow is July 4th, I can hardly think of anything more American to talk about than baseball. And there is hardly anything more unique to baseball than the bench-clearing brawl. Utter pandemonium breaks out, and yet this is accepted. If this happens in football or basketball, we wonder if society is unraveling at the seams & if we have a greater cultural problem. But baseball -- eh, this happens every other week.

Anyway, I've always wondered about the upside for a batter to charge the mound & incite the brawl. Usually he takes the most abuse. Just look here at what happened to Coco Crisp a month ago: the catcher throws him down & 3 other guys jump on top of him throwing haymakers:


But, now, someone has taught us all how to avoid getting caught from behind or cheap-shotted by the catcher. This video is truly awesome:


2 comments:

Sara said...

Greatest.charge.ever. I love where he ends up surrounded and you can just hear him thinking, "Oh man," right before he gets taken out by three players. Hehehe. I'd love to hear what's actually going on.

In other news, what is WRONG with the world right now? I have a newfound respect for the Yankees club right now. Aside from the two instances earlier, the commentators just commented that their OWN PLAYER was out, and that it was lucky that the ump called it wrong. Tampa Bay has completely thrown off my world balance...

Anonymous said...

Best charge I ever saw, hands down: Ryan v. Ventura. Classic. and when you're 8 years old, it's just that much better. Ahh, I remember it like it was yesterday...