Beaning the ump. Intentional or unintentional?
Finally, my, uh, brother, yeah that’s it, BoboKoncak, got his youtube career off the ground with this one. I, or we, were actually there watching this game at the ballpark in Cartersville, GA. My vision was blocked by a fence post, so I didn’t see the catcher duck, but everyone around me was like, “did you see that?!?!? the catcher ducked!”. Luckily, with it being the AAA Georgia High School state championship series, the games were being covered on local cable by Workhorse Video Productions. I figured they’d get it up on their site in no time and, like clock work, they did. Scott Singer at WVP is the freakin’ man. Raw video link.
Anyway, this has been a fairly hot sports issue the past 24 hours in the Atlanta area for a couple of reasons: 1- It’s on video and 2- It was so blatantly intentional and premeditated. Then throw in the fact that it was an act against an umpire.
Read the AJC articles to get the “low down”. Basically, Stephens County High School (pitching) was getting ripped all over the place and they couldn’t put a bat on a ball at the plate. They’ve caused problems before as the pitcher, Cody Martin, in the video sat out the first 2 games of this season as a result of him throwing his glove and hitting an umpire after the last game of the year last season. Real classy kid. His senior brother, Ethan Martin, had just struck out the inning before on a called strike 3, he yelled at the ump, and threw his helmet 30 feet into the dugout. Since Ethan hits 95MPH with his fastball, his draft status will probably not change.
As soon as the ump ripped his mask off he said to the catcher, “What in the hell are you doing?”
If this was an attempt to “get back” at the ump for “bad calls”, just imagine how small this kid’s strike zone will be next year. The catcher graduates, so he won’t get punished. Had this pitch hit the ump in the throat, who knows what would’ve happened.
No tubes like youtubes, Jai.
AJC references:
http://www.ajc.com/highschool/content/sports/highschool/stories/2008/06/02/hswild_0602.html
http://www.ajc.com/highschool/content/sports/highschool/stories/2008/06/02/wildpitch_0602.html
Vote here
This bitch can’t hit the strike zone but can hit the umpire on the first throw? Guess he just needs better motivation.
Fuck an umpire.