Is Throwing a Wild Pitch Criminal Behavior?
The Czech Baseball Association files a criminal complaint against a professional pitcher.
In baseball, the term “criminal” is usually only applied to bad decisions made by managers or poor hitting from a team’s highly paid superstar. The term is rarely used in its true legal sense.
Yet in the far-off baseball outpost of the Czech Republic, the concept of criminal assault is being applied to a wild pitch. Earlier this month, the Czech Baseball Association (CBA) filed a criminal complaint against an Australian pitcher throwing in the country’s top league.
The facts of the case have been explained as follows: In a playoff semifinals contest between Technika Brno and the Ostrava Arrows, a disagreement between the teams broke out. No violence occurred, but two members of the Technika club were tossed by the umpire. A half-inning later, a wild pitch during warm-ups by the Tecknika pitcher, Australian Blake Cunningham, hit the ground and then struck the umpire in the head, sending him to the hospital. (While the umpire needed surgery as a result, reports say that he will make a full recovery.)
Fearing that Cunningham would return to Australia before they had a chance to resolve the issue, the CBA requested criminal charges be filed. For his part, Cunningham has publicly professed his regret and innocence. (See here.)
I wasn’t at this contest, so I can’t speak to the nature of the wild pitch, but the idea that actions in the course of play should be criminalized in baseball seems criminal in and off itself — short of proof of pre-meditated malicious intent. As the great jurist Benjamin Cardozo once wrote: “One who takes part in … sport accepts the dangers that inhere in it so far as they are obvious and necessary.” Surely an umpire on a field of play should always be weary of errant pitches. Simply put, a wild pitch should have been foreseeable for the umpire.
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Josh Chetwynd is a journalist who has worked as a staff reporter for such publications as USA Todayand U.S. News & World Report. He is also a licensed attorney and has written two books, including Baseball in Europe: A Country by Country History.
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8 Comments
1. Carol Gould:Josh, I write for Pajamas and live in London. What happened to Channel Five and you? We baseball fans in the UK miss you.
Oct 24, 2009 - 2:59 am 2. SGT Ted:A fascinating article; I think the issues you raise relate to the mania in the Eurozone and UK about political correctness. In the UK a new law means that great writers like PD James can no longer visit schools without undergoing a criminal background check! People like myself cannot mentor student filmmakers or journalists unless I pay for a ‘Criminal Records Board certificate.’
The umpire is incompetent. Maybe the Czechs need to play softball instead. They certainly don’t have what it takes for hardball if they are prosecuting pitchers.
Oct 24, 2009 - 7:10 am 3. Increase Mather:Meanwhile…back in the States…baseball has been ruined by millionaire players who charge the mound whenever a pitch gets away. It’s gotten to a point now where batters dig in the box to a point where they create a crater…and there’s nothing a pitcher can do.
This is giving my age away…but when I was a kid my little league coach told us not to dig in because the pitcher might take offense…and he had a very hard missile in his hands that could plunk us. It was just part of the game.
Even the umpires knew it was part of the game.
What a bunch of babies.
Oct 24, 2009 - 8:23 am 4. Charlie (Colorado):Pretty good trick to hit an umpire intentinoally with a ricochet ground bounce.
Oct 24, 2009 - 11:51 am 5. myth buster:3. Not all of them charge the mound. Chase Utley got hit by over 20 pitches this year (probably more like 30), and he never once charged the mound. Then again, the Phillies don’t seem to mind taking pitches for the team.
Oct 24, 2009 - 12:57 pm 6. AuntWie:Let me get this right: the pitcher had it in for the ump so he threw the ball at the ground and bounced it into the ump’s head. On purpose. And he’s still playing in the Czech Republic? Has anybody in the CBA actually thrown a baseball? a softball? a volleyball? Socialist idiots. Bah!
Oct 24, 2009 - 10:13 pm 7. Marc Malone:Are they crying? Are they crying?!? There’s no crying in baseball! You know why? Because there’s no crying in baseball!
Euroweenies!
Oct 25, 2009 - 7:32 pm 8. Yobbo:“Pretty good trick to hit an umpire intentinoally with a ricochet ground bounce.”
It’s not nearly as hard as you seem to think, it happens all the time in Cricket.
Oct 27, 2009 - 10:03 am