might as well make it 2 posts in one day regarding some idiot recommending outrageously excessive punishments

tony la russa, you're a big time idiot. i can't decide who is more out of touch with how things work: the guy from my previous post who thinks burglars deserve life in prison, or tony with his comments here about how the league should punish pitchers who hit batters in the head. granted, one is talking about the criminal justice system in real life and the other is talking about a professional sport, so its hard to compare. lets just agree that theyre both expressing abso-fucking-lutely insane ideas.

the backstory: reds pitcher aaron harang hit cardinals catcher gary bennett in the head with a pitch on wednesday. harang later apologized. bennett accepted, saying he was sure it was an accident and that there were no hard feelings. end of story? not if la russa and his transition lenses have anything to say about it!

"It's accidental because he didn't mean to hit him, but he meant to throw the ball up and in and that's a very dangerous thing," La Russa said. "I've probably said it 100 times in the 20 years I've managed, so it ain't new material. But if you're a big league pitcher you should be able to get the ball below the shoulder."

this is like saying "if you make it to the NBA, you should never ever miss a layup." anyone who's watched maybe 20 or so baseball games in their life should know that this is not the case. there are plenty of successful big league pitchers who accidentally throw balls as high as a batter's head from time to time. the cardinals themselves, during la russa's tenure as manager, once famously employed a pitcher named rick ankiel who had quite a bit of trouble keeping the ball "below the shoulder." ankiel's tenure as a big league pitcher was relatively short. still, he made it to the big leagues, and had limited success, despite having shall we say minor control issues.

On Tuesday, La Russa said a first-time offender should receive a two-week suspension, a month for the second offense and a full season for a third occurrence.

that is completely and totally batshit insane. i can't even put together any other sentences to describe how dumb that proposal is. i bet tony would also endorse the following punishments:

-15 game suspension from the NHL for high sticking
-lifetime ban from the NFL for roughing the quarterback
-any european soccer player who gets a red card is immediately thrown out of their league and must spend a year in the MLS before reinstatement

ha! comedy by exaggeration. sorry, now back to tony being stupid.

He emphasized that goes for his pitchers, too.
"If our guy does it I yell, 'Get it down or you're out of there,"' La Russa said.

maybe he's yelled that to some 20 year-old minor leaguer during spring training. but i'll bet a fair sum of money tony has never made that threat to any cardinals player on the major league roster during a regular season or playoff game.

presumably la russa takes this stance for safety related reasons. i can't think of any other reasons he would feel so strongly about this issue, can you? well, i hate to resort to ad hominem attacks, but what the heck, it seems somewhat fair in this specific case. hey tony: if you're so concerned with safety, how about you don't drive drunk? asshole.