I don't care what was going on in the head of Clemens (I mean, I do care, but it's not an answer we're likely to get from Roger, even if he could articulate what he was thinking).
Runner should be awarded first base because he's been impeded in his attempt to reach base and the umpires should huddle to determine whether Clemens stays in the game. If he thought it was the baseball, then he should have thrown it to first. Instead, he threw it in the path of an opposing player while that player was trying to run to first. In hindsight, it's outrageous he wasn't tossed from the game.
Pitchers get tossed all the time for throwing "errant" pitches at batters, and you could argue that errant pitches are a part of baseball. Find me where "throwing sharp, splintered bat pieces (or other items 'mistaken' as baseballs) at base runners" is a regular feature of the game and I'll still argue he should have had the rest of the night off.
I have always thought he thought it was the ball, even at the time, and I really think Clemens is a jerk and I don't like the Yankees, so it isn't any kind of fandom.
He moves towards and fields it like he is going to make a play, realizes he has a bat in his hand, and in a mixture of anger and perhaps embarrassment, flings it into foul ground. I don't think he was looking at Piazza. I don't think he was throwing at Piazza, because if he had he would have looked at him and he would have actually thrown it at him. He actually looks a little shocked (in the one frame where they keep it on him enough to see his reaction) It really all seems natural.
By the time we get to see the replay, though, Buck and Mccarver have told us we are going to see Clemens firing a bat at Piazza, so that is what we see. Many of us may not like Clemens (an perhaps also have some antipathy for the Yankees) and people love controversy anyway, (particularly the media, as Buck and Mccarver and the later coverage on ESPN shows) so that is what we wanted to see. They had controversy earlier in the season, so it was built in.
Joe is right that "I thought it was the ball" doesn't even sound like something you could come up with if it wasn't true. Clemens is a jerk, but in that moment, he just got caught up in a perfect storm that led everyone to believe he threw it at Piazza.
Joe, please run an old fave from Kansas City every week or two.
Your observations, your angles, the way you approached each column, you just let it fly. A huge influence. "Get way, bat." So good. I've read you forever, but there was something about you at the Star. It was like you didn't care. If it sounded good to you, you went with it and it was gold.
I want to know if anyone else remembers a later game - can't remember details - where a broken bat came toward Jeter, he fielded it, got into a throwing position and glared at the runner for a few seconds before disposing of it properly. I'm hoping Clemens was pitching but I can't remember.
If he thought it was the ball, he would have instinctively started to throw to first. He didn't do that. Nor do I believe he was throwing the bat AT Pizza. I think he was throwing a temper tantrum after the bat came at him and hit him, and he was all jacked up on ego and whatever he was taking at the time along with the adrenaline of pitching in that WS game, got all Hulk-Smash, and being the jerk he was, chucked it towards the dugout...and the minute he let it go he was like "crap"...Piazza was suddenly closer than he thought. Clemens was watching the ball go foul determining if he needed to cover the base, and then the bat was on him (you can see him deciding whether to react to the play or the bat and deciding on the bat). Then he lost his mind on the bat and let it fly. You can even see Piazza slowing down before walking into it. Then he noticed Piazza yelling at him, dugouts emptying, and the reality of what just happened jarring him back from his rage. How does he respond? He chose "I thought it was the ball" because what else do you say to that? He wasn't going to apologize for acting like an insolent child (and I'm sure he wasn't remorseful). But, yeah, I've been arguing this since it happened: he wasn't aiming for Piazza. He's just a self-focused, hot-tempered meathead throwing a momentary fit.
I’m going to get piled on for this, but here’s the thing: “I thought it was the ball” is such a ridiculous excuse, and Clemens said it so instantly, that it simply has to be the truth.
You can mock the idea of mistaking a bat for a ball all you want, but Clemens was pitching in a high pressure World Series game, and a blur of an object came flying at him. That’s probably happened to him 100s of times, and zero times had it been the shards of a bat, so he reacted instantly and tried to field it as if it were the ball. (People who discount this theory never explain this part: If Clemens knew it was a jagged bat, then WHY DIDN’T HE TRY TO GET OUT OF THE WAY? He clearly moves TOWARD the bat, because he’s trying to field it.)
The next question is, “If he thought it was the ball, then why did he throw it at Piazza???” But he didn't, really. And, again, he was reacting instinctively. He fielded the “ball” and turned to throw to first. Midway he must think, “hey, this doesn’t feel right. It’s not shaped like a ball and it weighs differently.” But it’s too late to completely stop the motion, so he gets caught halfway turned, and the extra weight of bat compared to a ball slows down his motion, and so his throw ends up midway between where he was originally facing (home plate) and where he was turning (first base). It just so happens that Piazza was jogging to first (because, allow me to point out, he ALSO initially assumed the ball was in play and reacted instinctively by running to first). Let me suggest that Roger Clemens was a world-renown thrower of objects, and if he wanted to throw a bat at Mike Piazza, he would have thrown a bat at Mike Piazza, and not at the ground several feet in front of him. But he did not know what he was throwing, so it did not go where he intended.
This is the only explanation that makes sense. Clemens certainly WAS a hothead and a jerk, and you don’t have to disagree with this or like him to accept it. Being a jerk might explain beaning Piazza, or fighting him. But this was obviously an instinctive reaction. And if he were just trying to get away with being a jerk, he’d have offered one of the excuses offered by Torre and Co, or simply said “screw you Mike” when Piazza got mad. But he didn’t. He said “I thought it was the ball” which you would ONLY say if it were actually true.
Some years ago, as I was preparing for the summer baseball class I teach each year for our local Osher Lifelong Learning Institute chapter, I had Clemens as one of my "bad" guys in my "The Good, the Bad, and the Wacky" class. And I was watching Sportscenter or something and they featured a clip of a Braves pitcher (I believe) almost getting nailed by the top of a broken bat. As the catcher went out to check on him, he laughed off the close call and said quite clearly "I thought it was the ball." Reflex being what it is, pitchers expect the ball back at them, not the bat. So there should be no doubt at all that Clemens thought it was the ball, even if it's clever to say "A sharp, long piece of wood can look an awful lot like a baseball, especially in the lights." What he did after "fielding" the bat is another question entirely, of course, and worthy of much more discussion.
John, I can't disagree more with the premise of Clemens' excuse being too ridiculous to not be the truth. Clemens was angry that the bat hit him, and was taking it out on Piazza in anger. He was looking right at Piazza as he threw it. Clemens was throwing to hit a moving runner. The only reason the bat didn't hit Piazza was that Piazza slowed down. If Piazza had kept running at the same speed, the bat would have hit him.
The argument that it was "so ridiculous... that it simply has to be the truth" did not apply to Clemens then--or, frankly, to your answer now ;-)
Fair enough, Ed! But I think if you watch the video carefully, you’ll see something different. 1) Clemens was not angry that the bat hit him. In fact, the bat DIDN’T hit him… he moved toward it and fielded it AS IF IT WERE THE BALL. 2) The video seems inconclusive on where Clemens was looking when he threw. It looks to me like he’s looking at the ground or the dugout, but I concede he could be looking at Piazza. 3) Piazza clearly slows down when he realizes the ball is foul, before he even looks at Clemens. Now, Bob Brenly SAYS he slowed down when Clemens threw it, but that’s not actually what happened. Indeed, the announcers all immediately make the assumption that Clemens intentionally threw the bat at Piazza, which I think, besides Clemens’ reputation, is the other main reason everyone feels so confident concluding that is what happened.
But, hey, agree to disagree! My point is that there is more uncertainty here than Joe’s post, or the conventional wisdom, allows.
Regarding 1) You appear to be right that Clemens did move towards the bat as if to field it, although he certainly acted angrily that the bat bounced up at him. Regarding 3) I do agree that Piazza slowed down because the ball was foul. I never said that he was slowing down to avoid the bat, only that slowing down was what saved him from being hit by it. Perhaps not getting hit also saved Clemens from being ejected (although I think he should have been tossed). It would have been much harder to hide behind such a ridiculous excuse if the bat had actually hit Piazza.
Fair enough. I'm pretty convinced that Clemens did indeed think it was the ball, which is the only explanation for why he would try to field the broken bat. I'm less convinced about when exactly he realized his mistake. It's plausible, I suppose, that he realized it instantly and his reaction was to throw the bat at Piazza. But it just seems far more plausible to me that he was caught between throwing it to first and stopping, and so ended up midway between home and first, or threw at the ground in anger or frustration. In either case, though, "I thought it was the ball" was clearly the truth.
No. He caught the bat, he was pissed off because he's Clemens and he was always pissed off, especially at hitters who have the temerity to be good, so he chucked it at the subject of his ire. There's a moment in the clip where you see him start - a subtle full-body twitch - as if he's just been wakened from his preferred state of rage and a-holery, and at that point his brain grasps the first thing that comes into it in order to keep himself in the game. "I thought it was the ball."
It was absurd and stupid and obviously (to all but John and maybe select other Yankee fans who for reasons beyond me want to defend this guy) completely untrue, but it was his brain's defense mechanism to keep him in the game. And it worked. But no, it was definitely not the truth.
Yeah, see this "logic" is basically just astrology for Clemens haters. I also do not like Clemens, but I don't think that gives me magical insight into what a "subtle full-body twitch" means like I'm Miss Cleo or something.
I don't really hate Clemens. He was an incredible pitcher. But your "logic" makes no sense. Ignore the twitch if you'd like. He still threw a bat at a human being and then claimed he thought it was a ball. If you believe that, I would like to sell you fractional ownership rights to a famous baseball. Saying a statement is "so ridiculous it has to be truth" is absurd on its face.
1) I guess I need to say this explicitly, but his statement was absurd AS AN EXCUSE, so it suggests it's the truth. If he were just making something up to not get in trouble, he would have gone with something more plausible. But he said what he thought because he didn't have the time or inclination to come up with anything better.
2) If he threw the bat at Mike Piazza, then why didn't the bat hit Mike Piazza (or come particularly close, for that matter)? Do you think Clemens, an all-time great thrower of balls, was completely incompetent at throwing bats? Or did Clemens, in the half second the play unfolded, think "Ah, I am so mad! I will throw the bat close enough to Piazza to impress upon him my anger, but far enough that I will have plausible deniability. Plus, I will say I thought it was the ball, which is such a brilliant excuse that the umpires will have not choice but to leave me in this all-important World Series game!"? Or did he throw it erratically because he didn't realize what he was throwing? Honestly, which of those explanations seems more plausible to you?
Clemens was an all-time great thrower towards stationary targets. He thankfully lacked practice hitting a moving target (and Piazza didn't help by slowing down).
Interesting theory. Another one is that both Piazza and the bat end up halfway down the first base line for the same reason: Both Clemens and Piazza initially reacted towards first base, because they both thought the ball was in play, and then both pulled up halfway through their action. But because people generally like Piazza, but dislike Clemens, they accept the obvious explanation for his behavior, but not the one provided by Clemens.
Having pitched and having had a broken bat hit at me, my reaction was "OMG, a bat is headed towards me, I hope it doesn't hit me". I've seen other players have broken bats come at them. They initially reacted towards it, but realized that it was a broken bat. They slowed, picked it up, inspected it & then looked for someone who would receive it to throw it in the trash. Assuming Clemens immediate reaction was to field a ball, as soon as he picked it up he knew it wasn't a ball. The normal, almost 100% reaction would be to look for a bat boy to soft toss it underhand to on 5 bounces to dispose of it. At NO TIME in the history of baseball, has anyone reacted like Clemens & thrown it OVERHAND in the direction of an opposing player. There's no way that was some kind of accident. In his mind, he was raging that the bat came at him (he was probably raging before the bat came at him), looked for someone to blame, found him (Piazza) and fired it at him.
I appreciate your experience, but even you concede that it's not universal before saying you saying with certainty what a "normal, almost 100% reaction" is. (And the suggestion that Clemens should have looked for a bat boy in this circumstance, when he didn't even know if the ball was dead, is truly silly.) I've watched a lot of baseball, and this simply doesn't happen often enough to be sure what the "normal, almost 100% reaction" would be, or what reaction has occurred "at NO TIME in the history of baseball" -- it certainly hasn't happened in World Series games between guys with Clemens and Piazza's history. So we are clearly in uncharted waters here, and I just think people's reasoning here is motivated by a dislike of Clemens (which I share!) more than anything else.
Your version of events may in fact be right, but even you acknowledge that in that scenario he did indeed think it was the ball at first. You say he realized his mistake "as soon as he picked it up" and hurled it at Piazza in anger, and I think maybe he realized his mistake a fraction of a second later and threw it by mistake. Is one of those outcomes really 100% certain and other really laughable, as Joe implies?
There are a lot of shattered bats in MLB that we watch because you can literally watch a game every day. The bat sometimes shatters into a no mans land, but they also shatter and fly towards the various infielders and towards the pitcher. It's not a rare event. The disposing of the bat never becomes an often viewed video clip. Because it's just handled in a boring way and not chucked remotely in the direction of another player. That's where I get the 100% number. Except for Clemens. Joe clipped this video into this post because it's not normal. Not even close. Everyone knows that a jagged broken bat is essentially a dangerous weapon, and something that could even stick them if they pick it up wrong, so players tend to handle it carefully, or just wait for the bat boy to run out and grab it.
Yeah, see, this is exactly the kind of sophistry I’m talking about. Shattered bats are common. Shattered bats that fly directly back to the pitcher are not. But to make your point you have to conflate the two, which is obviously disingenuous.
It's completely absurd that he wasn't tossed out of the game. The umpires were too scared to do the right thing. It did completely overshadow the fact that it was Clemens second best start of his postseason career (out of 34) only topped by his prior start 8 days earlier against Seattle.
This should be studied by psychologists. Normally situations like this happen unobserved: "well, his wife had been nagging him all day about cleaning out the garage and then at dinner she asked him to pass the gravy with just the wrong tone in her voice and he snapped and murdered his whole family." But in this case, Clemens completely lost his mind in front of 50,000 people live and millions more on t.v. The search for a rational explanation is futile because there is none. It was a convergence of pressure, adrenaline, psychosis barely hidden below the surface (normally used to his advantage in competition), and roid-induced chemical imbalances. At that moment, he wasn't thinking at all - his animal instinct built into humans millions of years ago took over: there's an enemy, here's a weapon.
People always talk about the ball being different from years ago but I have to say as a person that watches quite a few games per year that the bats act differently now. Yeah guys have broken bats since the beginning of baseball but for a bunch of years in the early 2000s bats didn't just break they they shattered and multiple pieces flew across the field like that one. It was a common occurrence to have multiple bats shatter like that in a single game.
That's because maple bats became the choice of many in the late 90s....supposedly better bat speed, but they shattered at a significantly higher rate than the traditional ash bats. And players were also starting to use a bigger barrel with a smaller handle, a result of trying to make the bat lighter, and which ended up creating a disproportional balance. It was flat out dangerous. I remember when Tyler Colvin of the Cubs was stabbed by a shattered bat as he was going down the 3rd base line. Pretty sure most players have gone to birch or back to ash which is why you aren't seeing the bat explosions you were seeing in late 90s and early 00s.
I don't care what was going on in the head of Clemens (I mean, I do care, but it's not an answer we're likely to get from Roger, even if he could articulate what he was thinking).
Runner should be awarded first base because he's been impeded in his attempt to reach base and the umpires should huddle to determine whether Clemens stays in the game. If he thought it was the baseball, then he should have thrown it to first. Instead, he threw it in the path of an opposing player while that player was trying to run to first. In hindsight, it's outrageous he wasn't tossed from the game.
Pitchers get tossed all the time for throwing "errant" pitches at batters, and you could argue that errant pitches are a part of baseball. Find me where "throwing sharp, splintered bat pieces (or other items 'mistaken' as baseballs) at base runners" is a regular feature of the game and I'll still argue he should have had the rest of the night off.
Roid Rage. Televised.
I have always thought he thought it was the ball, even at the time, and I really think Clemens is a jerk and I don't like the Yankees, so it isn't any kind of fandom.
He moves towards and fields it like he is going to make a play, realizes he has a bat in his hand, and in a mixture of anger and perhaps embarrassment, flings it into foul ground. I don't think he was looking at Piazza. I don't think he was throwing at Piazza, because if he had he would have looked at him and he would have actually thrown it at him. He actually looks a little shocked (in the one frame where they keep it on him enough to see his reaction) It really all seems natural.
By the time we get to see the replay, though, Buck and Mccarver have told us we are going to see Clemens firing a bat at Piazza, so that is what we see. Many of us may not like Clemens (an perhaps also have some antipathy for the Yankees) and people love controversy anyway, (particularly the media, as Buck and Mccarver and the later coverage on ESPN shows) so that is what we wanted to see. They had controversy earlier in the season, so it was built in.
Joe is right that "I thought it was the ball" doesn't even sound like something you could come up with if it wasn't true. Clemens is a jerk, but in that moment, he just got caught up in a perfect storm that led everyone to believe he threw it at Piazza.
Joe, please run an old fave from Kansas City every week or two.
Your observations, your angles, the way you approached each column, you just let it fly. A huge influence. "Get way, bat." So good. I've read you forever, but there was something about you at the Star. It was like you didn't care. If it sounded good to you, you went with it and it was gold.
This is a great idea! Would love to read some of the old time Star articles.
Maybe even publish a book with the best of them!
I want to know if anyone else remembers a later game - can't remember details - where a broken bat came toward Jeter, he fielded it, got into a throwing position and glared at the runner for a few seconds before disposing of it properly. I'm hoping Clemens was pitching but I can't remember.
If he thought it was the ball, he would have instinctively started to throw to first. He didn't do that. Nor do I believe he was throwing the bat AT Pizza. I think he was throwing a temper tantrum after the bat came at him and hit him, and he was all jacked up on ego and whatever he was taking at the time along with the adrenaline of pitching in that WS game, got all Hulk-Smash, and being the jerk he was, chucked it towards the dugout...and the minute he let it go he was like "crap"...Piazza was suddenly closer than he thought. Clemens was watching the ball go foul determining if he needed to cover the base, and then the bat was on him (you can see him deciding whether to react to the play or the bat and deciding on the bat). Then he lost his mind on the bat and let it fly. You can even see Piazza slowing down before walking into it. Then he noticed Piazza yelling at him, dugouts emptying, and the reality of what just happened jarring him back from his rage. How does he respond? He chose "I thought it was the ball" because what else do you say to that? He wasn't going to apologize for acting like an insolent child (and I'm sure he wasn't remorseful). But, yeah, I've been arguing this since it happened: he wasn't aiming for Piazza. He's just a self-focused, hot-tempered meathead throwing a momentary fit.
I agree with this.
I’m going to get piled on for this, but here’s the thing: “I thought it was the ball” is such a ridiculous excuse, and Clemens said it so instantly, that it simply has to be the truth.
You can mock the idea of mistaking a bat for a ball all you want, but Clemens was pitching in a high pressure World Series game, and a blur of an object came flying at him. That’s probably happened to him 100s of times, and zero times had it been the shards of a bat, so he reacted instantly and tried to field it as if it were the ball. (People who discount this theory never explain this part: If Clemens knew it was a jagged bat, then WHY DIDN’T HE TRY TO GET OUT OF THE WAY? He clearly moves TOWARD the bat, because he’s trying to field it.)
The next question is, “If he thought it was the ball, then why did he throw it at Piazza???” But he didn't, really. And, again, he was reacting instinctively. He fielded the “ball” and turned to throw to first. Midway he must think, “hey, this doesn’t feel right. It’s not shaped like a ball and it weighs differently.” But it’s too late to completely stop the motion, so he gets caught halfway turned, and the extra weight of bat compared to a ball slows down his motion, and so his throw ends up midway between where he was originally facing (home plate) and where he was turning (first base). It just so happens that Piazza was jogging to first (because, allow me to point out, he ALSO initially assumed the ball was in play and reacted instinctively by running to first). Let me suggest that Roger Clemens was a world-renown thrower of objects, and if he wanted to throw a bat at Mike Piazza, he would have thrown a bat at Mike Piazza, and not at the ground several feet in front of him. But he did not know what he was throwing, so it did not go where he intended.
This is the only explanation that makes sense. Clemens certainly WAS a hothead and a jerk, and you don’t have to disagree with this or like him to accept it. Being a jerk might explain beaning Piazza, or fighting him. But this was obviously an instinctive reaction. And if he were just trying to get away with being a jerk, he’d have offered one of the excuses offered by Torre and Co, or simply said “screw you Mike” when Piazza got mad. But he didn’t. He said “I thought it was the ball” which you would ONLY say if it were actually true.
Some years ago, as I was preparing for the summer baseball class I teach each year for our local Osher Lifelong Learning Institute chapter, I had Clemens as one of my "bad" guys in my "The Good, the Bad, and the Wacky" class. And I was watching Sportscenter or something and they featured a clip of a Braves pitcher (I believe) almost getting nailed by the top of a broken bat. As the catcher went out to check on him, he laughed off the close call and said quite clearly "I thought it was the ball." Reflex being what it is, pitchers expect the ball back at them, not the bat. So there should be no doubt at all that Clemens thought it was the ball, even if it's clever to say "A sharp, long piece of wood can look an awful lot like a baseball, especially in the lights." What he did after "fielding" the bat is another question entirely, of course, and worthy of much more discussion.
John, I can't disagree more with the premise of Clemens' excuse being too ridiculous to not be the truth. Clemens was angry that the bat hit him, and was taking it out on Piazza in anger. He was looking right at Piazza as he threw it. Clemens was throwing to hit a moving runner. The only reason the bat didn't hit Piazza was that Piazza slowed down. If Piazza had kept running at the same speed, the bat would have hit him.
The argument that it was "so ridiculous... that it simply has to be the truth" did not apply to Clemens then--or, frankly, to your answer now ;-)
Fair enough, Ed! But I think if you watch the video carefully, you’ll see something different. 1) Clemens was not angry that the bat hit him. In fact, the bat DIDN’T hit him… he moved toward it and fielded it AS IF IT WERE THE BALL. 2) The video seems inconclusive on where Clemens was looking when he threw. It looks to me like he’s looking at the ground or the dugout, but I concede he could be looking at Piazza. 3) Piazza clearly slows down when he realizes the ball is foul, before he even looks at Clemens. Now, Bob Brenly SAYS he slowed down when Clemens threw it, but that’s not actually what happened. Indeed, the announcers all immediately make the assumption that Clemens intentionally threw the bat at Piazza, which I think, besides Clemens’ reputation, is the other main reason everyone feels so confident concluding that is what happened.
But, hey, agree to disagree! My point is that there is more uncertainty here than Joe’s post, or the conventional wisdom, allows.
Agree to disagree we shall ;-)
Regarding 1) You appear to be right that Clemens did move towards the bat as if to field it, although he certainly acted angrily that the bat bounced up at him. Regarding 3) I do agree that Piazza slowed down because the ball was foul. I never said that he was slowing down to avoid the bat, only that slowing down was what saved him from being hit by it. Perhaps not getting hit also saved Clemens from being ejected (although I think he should have been tossed). It would have been much harder to hide behind such a ridiculous excuse if the bat had actually hit Piazza.
Fair enough. I'm pretty convinced that Clemens did indeed think it was the ball, which is the only explanation for why he would try to field the broken bat. I'm less convinced about when exactly he realized his mistake. It's plausible, I suppose, that he realized it instantly and his reaction was to throw the bat at Piazza. But it just seems far more plausible to me that he was caught between throwing it to first and stopping, and so ended up midway between home and first, or threw at the ground in anger or frustration. In either case, though, "I thought it was the ball" was clearly the truth.
No. He caught the bat, he was pissed off because he's Clemens and he was always pissed off, especially at hitters who have the temerity to be good, so he chucked it at the subject of his ire. There's a moment in the clip where you see him start - a subtle full-body twitch - as if he's just been wakened from his preferred state of rage and a-holery, and at that point his brain grasps the first thing that comes into it in order to keep himself in the game. "I thought it was the ball."
It was absurd and stupid and obviously (to all but John and maybe select other Yankee fans who for reasons beyond me want to defend this guy) completely untrue, but it was his brain's defense mechanism to keep him in the game. And it worked. But no, it was definitely not the truth.
Yeah, see this "logic" is basically just astrology for Clemens haters. I also do not like Clemens, but I don't think that gives me magical insight into what a "subtle full-body twitch" means like I'm Miss Cleo or something.
I don't really hate Clemens. He was an incredible pitcher. But your "logic" makes no sense. Ignore the twitch if you'd like. He still threw a bat at a human being and then claimed he thought it was a ball. If you believe that, I would like to sell you fractional ownership rights to a famous baseball. Saying a statement is "so ridiculous it has to be truth" is absurd on its face.
1) I guess I need to say this explicitly, but his statement was absurd AS AN EXCUSE, so it suggests it's the truth. If he were just making something up to not get in trouble, he would have gone with something more plausible. But he said what he thought because he didn't have the time or inclination to come up with anything better.
2) If he threw the bat at Mike Piazza, then why didn't the bat hit Mike Piazza (or come particularly close, for that matter)? Do you think Clemens, an all-time great thrower of balls, was completely incompetent at throwing bats? Or did Clemens, in the half second the play unfolded, think "Ah, I am so mad! I will throw the bat close enough to Piazza to impress upon him my anger, but far enough that I will have plausible deniability. Plus, I will say I thought it was the ball, which is such a brilliant excuse that the umpires will have not choice but to leave me in this all-important World Series game!"? Or did he throw it erratically because he didn't realize what he was throwing? Honestly, which of those explanations seems more plausible to you?
Clemens was an all-time great thrower towards stationary targets. He thankfully lacked practice hitting a moving target (and Piazza didn't help by slowing down).
Interesting theory. Another one is that both Piazza and the bat end up halfway down the first base line for the same reason: Both Clemens and Piazza initially reacted towards first base, because they both thought the ball was in play, and then both pulled up halfway through their action. But because people generally like Piazza, but dislike Clemens, they accept the obvious explanation for his behavior, but not the one provided by Clemens.
Having pitched and having had a broken bat hit at me, my reaction was "OMG, a bat is headed towards me, I hope it doesn't hit me". I've seen other players have broken bats come at them. They initially reacted towards it, but realized that it was a broken bat. They slowed, picked it up, inspected it & then looked for someone who would receive it to throw it in the trash. Assuming Clemens immediate reaction was to field a ball, as soon as he picked it up he knew it wasn't a ball. The normal, almost 100% reaction would be to look for a bat boy to soft toss it underhand to on 5 bounces to dispose of it. At NO TIME in the history of baseball, has anyone reacted like Clemens & thrown it OVERHAND in the direction of an opposing player. There's no way that was some kind of accident. In his mind, he was raging that the bat came at him (he was probably raging before the bat came at him), looked for someone to blame, found him (Piazza) and fired it at him.
I appreciate your experience, but even you concede that it's not universal before saying you saying with certainty what a "normal, almost 100% reaction" is. (And the suggestion that Clemens should have looked for a bat boy in this circumstance, when he didn't even know if the ball was dead, is truly silly.) I've watched a lot of baseball, and this simply doesn't happen often enough to be sure what the "normal, almost 100% reaction" would be, or what reaction has occurred "at NO TIME in the history of baseball" -- it certainly hasn't happened in World Series games between guys with Clemens and Piazza's history. So we are clearly in uncharted waters here, and I just think people's reasoning here is motivated by a dislike of Clemens (which I share!) more than anything else.
Your version of events may in fact be right, but even you acknowledge that in that scenario he did indeed think it was the ball at first. You say he realized his mistake "as soon as he picked it up" and hurled it at Piazza in anger, and I think maybe he realized his mistake a fraction of a second later and threw it by mistake. Is one of those outcomes really 100% certain and other really laughable, as Joe implies?
There are a lot of shattered bats in MLB that we watch because you can literally watch a game every day. The bat sometimes shatters into a no mans land, but they also shatter and fly towards the various infielders and towards the pitcher. It's not a rare event. The disposing of the bat never becomes an often viewed video clip. Because it's just handled in a boring way and not chucked remotely in the direction of another player. That's where I get the 100% number. Except for Clemens. Joe clipped this video into this post because it's not normal. Not even close. Everyone knows that a jagged broken bat is essentially a dangerous weapon, and something that could even stick them if they pick it up wrong, so players tend to handle it carefully, or just wait for the bat boy to run out and grab it.
Yeah, see, this is exactly the kind of sophistry I’m talking about. Shattered bats are common. Shattered bats that fly directly back to the pitcher are not. But to make your point you have to conflate the two, which is obviously disingenuous.
In hindsight, plain and simple:
ROID RAGE.
Yep. I've seen it. It looks a lot like that. A LOT.
It's completely absurd that he wasn't tossed out of the game. The umpires were too scared to do the right thing. It did completely overshadow the fact that it was Clemens second best start of his postseason career (out of 34) only topped by his prior start 8 days earlier against Seattle.
This should be studied by psychologists. Normally situations like this happen unobserved: "well, his wife had been nagging him all day about cleaning out the garage and then at dinner she asked him to pass the gravy with just the wrong tone in her voice and he snapped and murdered his whole family." But in this case, Clemens completely lost his mind in front of 50,000 people live and millions more on t.v. The search for a rational explanation is futile because there is none. It was a convergence of pressure, adrenaline, psychosis barely hidden below the surface (normally used to his advantage in competition), and roid-induced chemical imbalances. At that moment, he wasn't thinking at all - his animal instinct built into humans millions of years ago took over: there's an enemy, here's a weapon.
That moment marks the first time I ever rooted for the Mets.
People always talk about the ball being different from years ago but I have to say as a person that watches quite a few games per year that the bats act differently now. Yeah guys have broken bats since the beginning of baseball but for a bunch of years in the early 2000s bats didn't just break they they shattered and multiple pieces flew across the field like that one. It was a common occurrence to have multiple bats shatter like that in a single game.
That's because maple bats became the choice of many in the late 90s....supposedly better bat speed, but they shattered at a significantly higher rate than the traditional ash bats. And players were also starting to use a bigger barrel with a smaller handle, a result of trying to make the bat lighter, and which ended up creating a disproportional balance. It was flat out dangerous. I remember when Tyler Colvin of the Cubs was stabbed by a shattered bat as he was going down the 3rd base line. Pretty sure most players have gone to birch or back to ash which is why you aren't seeing the bat explosions you were seeing in late 90s and early 00s.
Clemens is a jerk, was a jerk, will always be a jerk.
21 years later, you could write a follow up to say, "It's OK, it was the ROIDS taking over his mental thought process!"
Though, to be fair, Clemens was a jerk before the ROIDS, too.