I recently had a run-in during a game, in which I threw behind (I missed) a batter who had gotten a hit off of me earlier and then ran his mouth about how easy I was to hit. A brawl nearly ensued, but he didn’t feel safe coming all the way out to me. Understandable.

So what does one do if a batter charges the mound? I don’t have firsthand experience (yet) but I was given a lesson by a fiercely competitive coach who had quite a bit of it.

To loosely quote the former coach of mine:

“If a guy ever comes at you, you take your glove off and when he gets close enough, you throw it at him with your pitching hand. Then you dot (punch) him with your non-throwing hand. No one isn’t going to duck with a glove thrown at their face, so you hit em while their covering up. If you stay on the mound and defend yourself, I’ll argue for you to stay in the game, and I’ll win.”

Pretty good advice I thought.  Invariably you’re gonna come across some batters who deserve one in the ribs for disrespectful conduct.  And inevitably some of those batters are going to get pretty angry if they realize they got one on purpose. If you can win the fight and embarrass them even further, then you’ll have a great story to tell, and plenty of adrenaline left for the late innings, that is, if you don’t get ejected.

James Shields does a pretty good job here.  Throws a nice haymaker, though he doesn’t connect.  Better luck next time.