WCD Knuckle Balls: Pitchers Must Vow To Swerve And Protect

Everyone on the the West Coast Digress staff - from the cross-dressing CEO to the angry parole-evading janitor - were horrified by the sight of Athletics pitcher, Brandon McCarthy, writhing on the ground after being struck by a line drive on his follow-through (No, we won’t provide a link to the video footage, you disgusting little buzzard-bangers…).  It was the latest in a long line of hurler harm (that’s all you get, sickos…) and we feel the protection of delicate flowers such as Jose Valverde, Joba Chamberlain and Heath Bell should now be baseball’s number one priority.

Let’s give the process a head start: 

Teach pitchers the swerve ball:

This is not a new pitch discovered in Christy Mathewson’s long lost journal - it is a move of self-preservation in the event of a lethal comebacker.  Pitchers need to be able to swerve the way Bobby Jenks drives away from a strip club.  And who better to afford them skills of evasion than the great Roger Clemens?  We imagine he could take time out of his busy Sugarland Skeeters sked to teach his peers such dodgy musts as the “hustle”, the “matador”, and his most famous move: the “perjure”.  

Make pitchers wear a Don Mossi mask on the mound:

As astutely identified by Gin and Tacos, Don Mossi was to handsome as Babe Ruth was to humble.  Mossi may have vacated the diamond in 1965, but a mask of his ill-constructed visage, if mandated as standard apparel for every hurler in the majors, could live on, forever eliminating the possibility of pitcher danger.  Think about it: if you’re a hitter facing the Mossi mug on a nightly basis, you’re going to do everything in your power to avoid unnecessary eye contact.  Pull the ball, hit away, bunt…Anything bar the line drive back up the middle and its associated threat of lost bowel control.    

Encourage careers in Phrenology post-baseball:

Perhaps we’re a little naive to think a pitcher, no matter what safeguards we employ, will never again have their melon split by a liner.  So, let’s instead focus on the ‘what next?’; the life after a baseball dream has been cut short by brain injury and hideous deformation.  Where can a bitter, disfigured tosser find peace?  Phrenology.  It may not be science du jour right now, but with a little assistance from the fucked up craniums of the pitching community, we think it can be a solid comebacker in its own right.