"There was a game earlier this season—the specifics escape me, although I believe I wrote about it—in which a batter took offense on a pitch that, while very high, cut the heart of the plate."

Richie Sexson/Kason Gabbard, perhaps?

But what do we do in those knotty situations where it really looks like a pitcher appears to be aiming for a batter's head? Anyone who watched Roger Clemens or Bob Gibson pitch knows there's a fine line between establishing the inside half and being malicious.
If a batter can't charge the mound after an 0-0 fastball buzzes his head, and the opposing pitcher doesn't buy into macho code of retaliation, then what's to stop some rogue pitcher from getting away with whatever he feels like doing?

I agree with Joe that it would be better if baseball didn't have such a macho culture about this, but since it's not going away anytime soon, what should be done to contain it?

As an aside, I react similarly to the sophomoric antics reported gleefully each year, where rookies are forced to dress in embarrassing fashion as the team travels from location to location. It's childish and demeaning and beneath everyone involved.

I would agree with you more, except that there are real times when a pitcher intentionally throws at a batter. You make it sound like all of these occasions are just pitches that slipped, but sometimes it's out of frustration on the pitcher's part. That said, even in some of these real cases, the offended team can act a little too offended. There is a place for some beanball once in a while, but should be reserved for legitimate occasions.

Myers threw behind Manny. Myers buzzed Martin's coconut, and that wasn't a case of Martin overreacting. Martin got some more chin music yesterday. And the response among this comunity is to ignore it.
I'm glad Kuroda did what he had to do re Vizcaino. The pitch wasn't close to hitting him...it was way over his head. It just let the Phillies know that the Dodgers have taken notice of their pitchers' intimidations.
This is one of the ways baseball is a team sport. Players have got to stand up for and protect other players. If they don't, it will be tough living with guys you live and travel with for seven months a year.
I for one was glad to see for one brief instant last evening a pause in the increasing feminization of our society.

dodgerken is probably a big foe of the increasing feminization of rookie hazing, then?

McCarver never fails to invoke undeserved Hall of Famer Don Drysdale during these macho games of chicken.

Yes Jeff Kent that pillar of reason who once charged the mound after getting hit by a pitch from a pitcher who was throwing a perfect game at the time.
He probably wasn't the best example you could have used to validate your argument.

"We chuckle at behavior that would be considered actionable in other workplaces, and I think it's because we want to believe we're watching kids play a game, and when they act like kids, it feeds that fantasy."

Oh c'mon. There's a big difference between hazing in a lockerroom and the type of "actionable" harassment you allude to. And it's a gross assumption to say the ONLY reason that hazers haze is because they were once hazed themselves - I've been hazed in good-natured ways and been able to laugh at the prank objectively.

And it strikes me as incongruous to demand that players approach the game like a job as it is to "ridicule the smart ones for their lack of passion."

I'm with Joe on this one. Yes, it's bad if someone is intentionally trying to injure someone - and we have a mechanism for dealing with that, in the Umpires. If the players are taking matters into their own hands, perhaps the Umpire enforcement is not strong enough.

Hitting a player also has an actual, in-game, makes it less likely for you to _win_ mechanism. Don't just hand this back in an emotional snit!

Seriously, has any former player ever admitted to a sentiment like, "Hey, that team doesn't retaliate! Let's just hit their best players and make 'em take it!" Because the whole argument presupposes this position, but I doubt it's real.

Just take your base, and win the damn game as your revenge.

I really liked the fact that the umpires let the Dodgers get there retaliation in before issuing the warning. This is how it should be done. And to encourage this umpires should give a team a chance to retaliate. And MLB should encourage it by only suspending players who charge the mound. Leave the pitcher in the game.

I know Martin has no complaint about the pitch that hit him last night nor the "chin music" he got in his next at bat. He didn't move an inch on the breaking ball that hit him. And he moved into the high-and-tight pitch.

Victorino should "man up", too. All he had to do was get back in the batter's box and everything blows over. But, no, he has to make a federal production of it.

Just realized...I typed Vizcaino instead of Victorino. Guess I have my mind in ex-Dodgers mode. Thing is, I have Victorino on my fantasy team and I also have Kuroda. I like both players and they both were professional in their behavior yesterday.

Hey, those hazing rituals saved Kyle Denney's leg. If he hadn't been wearing a cheerleader boot...

1) There is retaliation for a high-and-tight pitch...it's a ball. Pitcher only gets 4 of them, and he just wasted one because a) he was retaliating for a ball one of his players received, b) he was wasting a pitch to freeze the batter, c) he lost control. As long as nobody is getting their head knocked off, I'd let them throw balls to me all day long.
2) I don't ever recall Jeff Kent rushing the mound, although I'm sure he has. I'm pretty sure it was Reggie Sanders who rushed the mound on Pedro during the no-hitter, because I remember the stories about the size disadvantage.
3) Personally, if you are going to retaliate to an inside pitch, I vote for the Ken Griffey Jr. method. That leaves the rest of the team out of it. On the next pitch, fling your bat in the direction of the pitcher...accidentally. Oops...slipped out of my hands. Why get Kuroda and Victorino into the debate between Myers and Martin?

there's a piece of game theory in economics that sort of relates to this issue. The problem is how to induce cooperative behavior in what would ordinarily be a competitive situation. In this instance, the issue is how to reach a coordinated solution of no throwing AT a hitter, when it might, right now, look to be in my interests to do so.

The solution which comes up in game theory (see Robert Axelrod's book The Evolution of Cooperation) is a strategy called tit-for-tat. The essential idea is that I, as a player, begin by behaving cooperatively--my pitchers do not throw at your hitters. And, so long as you cooperate (your pitchers don't throw at my hitters), I continue to cooperate.

But if you defect--your pitchers throw at my hitters, I punish you--I have my pitchers throw at your hitters--once, and then go back to "cooperate" mode.

So it's rational to cooperate. And it's rational to retaliate. It's the initial breakdown that's the source of the problem.

"In truth, MLB clubhouses are a workplace, and the fields an office, and it strikes me that we hold the most disdain for the players who treat both as such. The smartest players, the ones with the least use for the illusion that it's more than that, tend to be treated as outcasts. The players for whom it's just a good job, such as Jeff Kent, are ridiculed for their lack of passion. Those are the ones, however, who have the best grasp of the industry as a whole."

I think this misses the nature of the appeal of the game to significant number of fans, if not the majority. The last thing these fans want to do is to think of baseball as a business. To them, baseball is an escape, it is about heroic myths, dramatic narratives. Of course they'll hate someone like Kent, or better yet, Bonds, who reminds them that the game is a business.

As for writers like Simers and Plaschke, who have done a great deal to demonize guys like Kent and Bonds, their work is entirely about creating a narrative. Anyone (players who openly treat the game like a business) or anything (statistical analysis) that may conflict with the sweeping narratives that they are trying to concoct is bad in their eyes. In a moment of candor, these writers would probably admit as much, that they sees themselves as homeric figures, documenting modern day heroic myths.

As much as I'm not a fan of the kind of macho crap that Joe complains about, I think it is an inescapable part of the game.

There is a book I saw once at the local Borders bookstore which explains the "code" of baseball, but I can't remember what it was called. I remember looking through it and the author interviewed many past and present Twins. The same author also wrote a similar book about hockey and why they have fighting in hockey. I'm sure it can all be explained in this book, but I think it is all silly. Maybe if players got arrested for fighting in the game and had to face charges in a real court of law, it would all change.

Pro athletes are our gladiators. They deal with the macho cr@p, so we can hoot about it in front of the tv and blow off steam. They help us get this bottled-up stuff out of our systems so we can be civilized to the jerks we work for or with.

Also, hazing, as long as it doesn't involve hurting anyone, is a tried and true method for increasing team cohesiveness (the effect of cohesiveness on winning is a separate argument).