Thoughts on the Bean Ball

Those of you who weren't busy watching Barry Bonds go and get his wonderful fake record last night may have caught an overheated Yankees-Blue Jays game in which A-Rod was hit by a pitch, the benches cleared twice, and Clemens retaliated by throwing at Alex Rios' butt and then got his and Joe Torre's butts thrown out of the game.

Following the melee-ridden vengefest, Jorge Posada told reporters that the Jays' pitcher was "definitely" throwing at A-Rod to get back at him for a curious yelling incident earlier in the season. He wouldn't comment on Roger "Rocket Relaunch" Clemens' curiously misguided pitch at Rios, but said what needed to get done was done. "Rocket Relaunch" himself was similarly crypto-obvious.

Betty appreciates the subtle politics of the bean ball. She likes it that big overpaid serious players like Rocket Relaunch must be enlisted in the cause of avenging injustice against a teammate but that no one can actually talk about it or Bud Selig's army of scowls and fines will fume. In Betty's view, the kind of double-talk and on-field acting bean ball back-and-forths engender is priceless and unique in baseball. When else are these guys asked to play it ambiguous?

The only confusing thing about last night's shady violence involving a tightly wound little white ball was its first target. What exactly are you going to prove by hitting Alex Rodriguez? Whoever you are, and no matter how many times you hit him with a pitch, he will always be a much, much better baseball player than you are.