Delmon Young Suspended 50 Games

I think 20 would have been enough. He didn't mean to hit him. It was only some high school replacement ump. And boy was that pitch outside. Punishing guys like Young for hitting umpires with bats sends the wrong message to umps like Angel Hernandez who routinely (and now publically) call a different strike zone for different pitchers. Hitting umpires with bats is the only way to keep them honest.

Angel Hernandez is a braves fan, theres no doubt about it.

I hope you're joking.

That was to MetsJetsDevils

Roberto Alomar only got 5 games suspension when he spit on the ump...theres a lesson for the youngsters out there...when attacking an ump, only use your own bodily fluids

50 games is the right number, especially since this isn't his first run-in with the umps. Hopefully this will get his head straight.

I'd have give him 50. This is as bad as roiding, if not worse. He's lucky he hit the ump where he did and did not cause serious harm.

50 is perfect, he totally deserves it.

He shouldn't have gotten any punishment! For years, hitters have been taking bad calls like that; he was mad as hell and wasn't taking it anymore! Way to show those umps who's boss, Delmon!

Before everybody lynches me, I'm only kidding. 50 games sounds about right, although abuse-of-official cases in other sports have garnered more lenient punishments -- remember Nick Van Exel's head-butting of a ref? He only got a seven-game suspension! Still, what Young did was inexcusable. As the top prospect in all of baseball, tou'd think he would have enough sense not to damage his future earnings potential over a meaningless called third strike in a minor league game. In my mind, this rasies serious questions about his makeup.

I think 50 is a bit much. It was really stupid of him to do it, but it was just a lapse of judgement in a moment of anger. 20 would've been enough.

Cmon DNL. 50 games? As bad as roiding? It was an accident. Imagine if when one of the guys throws his helmet or smashes it in the ground it bounces and hits the ump? He didn't try to hit the ump. He threw his bat in frustration and it hit the ump. 20-25 games would have been enough. And there is no way this was as bad as roiding. This does not effect the integrity of the game. An umpire saying he gives pitchers different strike zones effects the integrity of the game, throwing your bat in frustration is idiotic, but it doesn't effect the game for anyone but the guy who threw the bat.

Doesn't matter that it was a mistake. He threw his bat in the direction of the umpire. You can't then throw up your hands and say, "whoops, only meant to give him a scare." That's crap. He hit an umpire with a bat. I don't care if it was a mistake or if it was malicious. He needs to take some time off and try to get his temper in check. Ultimately, it would be best for him AND the Devil Rays.

Affects the intgrity of the game? Geez, MetsJets. Of course this affects the integrity of the game. You don't think it would affect the integrity of the game if they gave him a shortened suspension because he didn't "mean" to hit the ump? A tantrum like that is inexcusable. The fact that nobody was hurt by that was pure luck. I'm glad that baseball is not letting him off the hook, because I'd be furious if they said that kind of behavior is acceptible if you didn't "mean" to hurt anyone.

Sorry, I have to make one more comment because I'm just flabbergasted at MetsJets. Just an accident? The same as throwing your helmet at the ground? That's ridiculous. It's more than ridiculous, it's stupid. He wasn't throwing his bat somewhere it belonged and it got away from him. He threw it AT the ump. Plain and simple. It's not like it rococheted off something and it was a fluke. He threw it at the ump. How can you defend Young like this?

I am not Defending Young. I am merely pointing out that physical contact is made with umps all the time. I agree he deserves to get suspended, but I think 50 games is way too much. For comparison sake, its about the same suspension Sprewell got for choking his coach and Artest got for beating up fans. Maybe if I were watching the game live I would have a different opinion, but having seen the video from multiple angles, I just don't think it was malicious or warranted a 50 game ban.

Yes, physical contact is made with the refs all the time, but not with a baseball bat! That's like saying Artest shouldn't have gotten such a hefty suspension because players get mad at fans all the time. What happened in this situation is far from routine. And again, whether or not it was malicious is beside the point. All that matters is that he threw his bat at an umpire. That is simply inexcusable, the same way it was inexcusable for Sprewell to choke his coach, or for Artest to attack that fan, or for that Cleveland Browns offensive lineman to assault the ref when he got hit in the eye with a flag. I don't know if a 50 game suspension is any better than a 30 game suspension, but what I do know is that in this situation, motive hardly matters. He could have severely injured somebody doing that. He needs to get a grip and fast. Personally, I think he should have had mandated anger management classes instead of a fine.

I just think this whole thing is being blown out of proportion. If you want my opinion one of the few black men in baseball hit a white guy with a bat so he gets a draconian suspension.

MetsJets, I was with ya til you had to go and play the race card.

I was not playing the race card. I was merely pointing out the fact that Robbie Alomar got 5 games for spitting on an ump. George Brett got how many for the famous pine tar incident? but Delmon fot 50 games. Its simply excessive. The guy wasn't even a real ump.

First of all, you did play the race card, and it was lame. Secondly, he's not "one of the few" black men in baseball. Looked at a field lately? This isn't the 1960s. There are plenty of black baseball players. Thirdly, you keep making these comprisons that simply don't apply. What Alomar did was bad, but spitting on a person will almost never cause physical injury. The same can't be said for throwing a bat. George Brett threw a huge fit over the pine tar thing, but he didn't assault the umpire. He didn't throw his bat at the umpire. The penalty isn't excessive, THROWING A BAT AT A PERSON is excessive. And the guy WAS a real ump. The fact that he's not usually a minor league ump doesn't change the fact that he is a uniformed umpire that gets paid to do his job. And even if he WEREN'T a real ump, it wouldn't excuse Young for what he did. I'd expect this kind of suspension if he threw a bat at some random guy on the street. Why do you not grasp the weight of assaulting someone with a weapon?

Maybe I should have been more specific. When I refered to "black" players I meant "African-American." Because of your ignorance about the disappearance of African-Americans from baseball. I will inform you. Your "its not the 1960s" quip is right, but for the wrong reason. In the 1960s baseball was integrated and integrating. Now, baseball may be integrated but few african american players are in the league.

This phenomenon is hardly unique to Strong, or the Mariners. Five teams — the Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros, Atlanta Braves and Colorado Rockies — had no African-American players on their active rosters as of Monday, while several other teams had just one or two.

When Florida's Dontrelle Willis faced the Los Angeles Dodgers' Edwin Jackson last week, it was a notable occurrence, an extremely rare matchup of African-American starting pitchers — rare because only five are in major-league rotations. And there is not one African-American catcher since Charles Johnson was waived by the Devil Rays in June.

The stark fact is that 58 years after Jackie Robinson integrated baseball, considered by many to be the single most significant event in the history of professional sports, the American-born black baseball player is slowly disappearing from the game.

The numbers tell the story. Since 1975, when 27 percent of major-league players were African-American, the number has steadily declined. A Seattle Times analysis of active rosters, including players on disabled lists, showed that 8.9 percent (79 of 888 players) were African-American.

Besides your woefull ignorance of the state of african-american ballplayers, the rest of your post is just as off-base. Your language is inaccurate. In one post you mention twice "assaulting the umpire" and "throwing a bat at a person." However, I think both of these descriptions overstate what happened. The player made a mistake, but he neither assaulted anyone nor did he throw his bat AT anyone. As far as I can tell he flipped his bat but inadvertantly hit the ump. In that scenario, I think throwing the bat is worthy of a 10 game suspension and that the bat made contact with someone worthy of another 15 or so games. As for the rest of the debate, I will merely point out that Delmon Young is not the 1st person to throw a bat at someone. During the World Series Roger Clemens threw a far more dangerous splintered bat at an opposing player and escaped with NO punishment. So a white superstar pitcher intentionally throws a bat at the opposing teams best player and gets no penalty but a black young phenom throws a bat that most likely inadvertantly hits the umpire and gets 50 games. I highly doubt that race played a part in any of this, but you have to admit that a white guy gets no punishment but a black guy gets 50 games seems a little unfair. Why did MLB believe Clemens when he ridiculously suggested he was just trying to help the bat boy by throwing the splintered bat at Piazza? (Clemens explaine he was just so overpowered by his own emotions that he immediately felt the urge to heave this bat "towards our on-deck circle, where our batboys were at.") He was not punished AT ALL.

And I still don't know what you're looking at to give you the impression it was such an accident. He threw the bat from many feet away in a direction it did not need to go. It's not like he was tossing it towards the dugout. It was NOT an accident. What are you looking at? But whether or not it was an accident doesn't even matter. He had a tantrum and threw a bat. If it was an accident, he was out of control and should STILL be suspended. You talk about Clemens, but use YET another bad comparison. Clemens got no suspension, true. But he also didn't HIT anyone. Your comparisons are still weak. You wanna make an apt comparison, talk about Pete Rose and his suspension for shoving an ump. I believe he got 30 games, or maybe it was 20. Was THAT suspension to severe? I think not. And as you ream me about my "woeful" ignorance of African-American players, let me just inform you that the Astros have one African American in Preston Wilson. The Red Sox have Willie Harris. The Braves have Brian Jordan. The Orioles have LaTroy Hawkins and Corey Patterson. The Rockies have Ray King. And I don't know if your comment about the Mariners was meant to indicate they had no Afro-American players, but they have Matt Lawton and Carl Everett. Try doing your homework next time.

By the way, I would hardly argue that baseall is less integrated. There may be fewer African-American players than there were 30 years ago, but do you want to talk about how many Hispanic and Asian players there are as compared to 30 years ago? How about compared to just 10 years ago? Baseball isn't less integrated for having fewer black players, it is just more well-integrated throughout the world's many races.

Well, my question is will this Delmon Young now be considered a thug for the rest of his career as are players with violent outbursts are in other sports?

Mr. Anonymous Fanatic, You cite the Clemens example as a bad example, but in truth there are only 3 differences. 1) Clemens is white. 2) Clemens threw the bat at a player, not an ump, 3) Piazza avoided the bat. The difference between throwing your bat AT someone but missing and throwing your bat TOWARD someone and making contact is 50 games? I'd say that is a more than appropriate example.

As for your woefull ignorance about race issues in baseball, I am really proud that you can name 6 african american ballplayers. Some of my best friends are black!! The fact is I was posting an article from a Seattle Newspaper that was probably a year old. But because you accuse me of not doing my research, I have found an article from Pittsburgh from just a few days ago.

Peter Diana, Post-Gazette Pitcher Ian Snell is the only African-American on the Pirates His story is increasingly unusual, if only because of his background. Snell's mother is African-American, and he considers himself -- with vocal pride -- to count among the few black players in Major League Baseball.

And the only one in the Pirates' clubhouse.

"Look around," he said with a smile the other day in Washington. "It's just me."

There were 69 African-Americans on opening-day rosters in the majors last month, which represented 9.2 percent of all 750 players. That is down sharply from 17 percent three years ago and 27 percent 30 years ago.

From the team that fielded what was described as the first "all-black lineup" Sept. 1, 1971, one comprised of five African-Americans and four dark-skinned Latin Americans. Although MLB four years ago opened a baseball academy in Compton, Calif., a community dominated by African-Americans, it remains the only facility of its kind.

By comparison, every team in the majors owns and operates academies throughout Latin America -- the Pirates have them in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic -- that offer baseball instruction, schooling, equipment, even food and essentials, all aimed at developing talent there.

Stop the violence, Delmon! Not only did you toss a bat at an umpire, but you sparked a flame war at ArmchairGM!

My point wasn't that I could name black players, my point was that you're ranting about something you clearly haven't done your reasearch on. Or at least are using old, useless information on. And one of the differences you cited with Clemens is the only difference that matters - Clemens didn't actually hit anyone. Should he have been suspended? Maybe. But he didn't hit anyone! Delmon Young did. That's the only difference that matters. You say you weren't playing the race card, but you continue to go down that path. I'm done with this ridiculous exercise. Defend Young if you want, but I'm through arguing with someone who clearly has an agenda that is not allowing them to see the facts for what they are.

50 games out of... If it's anythoing like the 162 in MLB (I don't know how many), then it's not a problem. $150,000, when he is likely to be earning millions in a few years, then it's not a problem. 50 hours of community work. Not really a problem. No punishment he could have been given could possibly compare to the effect this will have on his future career. He will be tainted forever.