Five American Batters Hit By Chinese Pitchers In Brutal Olympics Game (VIDEO)

The Chicago Tribune reports on a brutal baseball game between the US and China that featured five American batters getting hit by Chinese pitches:

Our relations with China were nearly broken at the plate.

A near-brawl with our Olympic hosts in a baseball game won 9-1 by the U.S. team Monday night resulted in an unexpected outbreak of tension for the international pastime.

Three members of China's team were ejected from the game.

Two collisions at home plate led to an injury to a Chinese catcher and a confrontation with another.

An American player was then hit in the head with a pitch. He was rushed to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with a concussion.

"That was the last straw," said U.S. center fielder Nate Schierholtz, another of the principals.

Watch the video, courtesy of MSNBC:

Comments

[Sloppyseconds]

I thought it was perfectly legal to slam into the catcher for hogging the plate.

[TruthSeeker09]

Yeah, it is. I think the first play at home was nothing out of the ordinary. The second time the American player was coming home though, he clearly was trying to take out the Chinese catcher, probably in retaliation for the illegitimate bean balling after the first (legitimate) play at home.

[solid]

I agree with you, but it looked to me on the second play that the Chinese catcher was trying to block the plate in a very poor upright position. As a catcher, you are definitely asking for trouble any time you try to block the plate, and especially in a stance like that. If you watch major league catchers in a situation like that, they will be one step in front of home plate while waiting for the ball so they don't get creamed.

[Mason]

Only if plate full of beans and boy needs bean to put on boy batter head.

[YeahDonkey]

THAT WAS AWESOME!!!! I don't know what all the crying is about, that looked just like a minor league ball game to me! China has learned their lessons well( great documentary on the Chinese baseball team, coached by an American BB coach, PBS) that is Carolina league baseball all over! As far as your great manufacturing triumph call me when you don't have slave labor, Jesus even with Republicans we still aren't as polluted Bejing. But seriously WHO DOESN'T WANT TO BE AT THAT BASEBALL GAME!!! watching of course, remind me never to scrimmage the Chinese baseball team, YIKES!!!!

It was a bloodbath, GOOD!!! Baseball is barely watchable with the best players in the world involved let alone one bad college team and one bad high school team, still you shouldn't throw at someones head. Nobody needs brain damage, but a forearm shiver to the head can also do major damage so lets not start throwing blame around.

IF YOU DON'T LIKE THAT GAME YOU DON'T LIKE CHRISTMAS!!! ....Tommy Lasorda

[bostongreen]

Deliberately beaning someone in the head should never be part of the game. Remember Tony C.

[gr8abz]

And China will own us. Under President Bush we are borrowing a staggering billion dollars a day from China in order to help finance the mess in Iraq. McCain will continue with this arrangement should he get elected.

[davesideas]

glad someone finally pointed that out...and you can't blame China for picking up Bush's markers...

[gmlaster]

Not that your statement has anything to do with BASEBALL, but don't believe everything you read online. China will never own "us", so just get that out of your head. Barack Obama got $7.8 million dollars in campaign contributions IN ONE DAY in San Francisco. He made over $50 million in contributions in a month. That's just donations for campaign contributions. We've got plenty of money. We've just been under bad management.

Clearly you don't understand "us". Don't you know that we would blow up the Earth before we let you own America? No joke buddy. Bush is leaving, and with him gone that means we're getting rid of China and India, and we're taking our jobs back. You'll get your money so we can be rid of you.

All we have to do to pay you is start making EVERYBODY pay their fair share of taxes, like the rich and super-rich who got all those tax breaks from Bush for eight years. All those corporations who got fat sending all our jobs to China have plenty of tax money to pay you. We're getting a new president who wouldn't take their lobby money, so he owes them nothing. It's their turn to pay. So stop drinking the Kool-Aid dude. You will never, EVER, own us.

[Pompeii]

Dream on, gmlaster, while I look forward to getting rid of these GOP fools, the fact is that China does own us for all practical purposes, and when you owe a creditor, you pay that creditor back. Bush and the GOP have done so much damage to our country that it'll take decades to repair. The total costs for Iraq will exceed $3 trillion including veteran care and equipment replacement. We're also pissing away countless trillions on useless nuclear weapons and military bases abroad. (And "we'd rather blow up the world than have you own us"??? Seriously, you sound like a Republican yourself at heart.)

The longer we piss away our national wealth on 10,000 nuclear weapons, and the longer we stay stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan, the more interest will grow on the national debt. And the more we'll owe the Chinese. And until we finally start paying back the $1.5 trillion that we owe the Chinese, yes, they do own us. Period. If we want to claim otherwise, then we should get off our duffs, elect Obama, and they finally pay the Chinese what we owe, so we can finally be independent again.

[Scytherius]

I used to be a HUGE sports fan. I ahven't been one in years as it's mostly thugs trying to be men when they are really spoiled children. I could care less who won or even that these fools played.

[Thinkbolt]

Here here.

[jbeach]

Makes me wonder if the players on the Chinese team were fearful of repercussions from their country, and simply desperate.

Doesn't excuse them, just a possible context that might explain them. And/or they just have that much more of an anything-you-can-get-away-with mentality.

The Bush/Cheney gov't has that worldview too, right now and for the past 8 years.

[OneTop]

Get up ... you suck !

Just a baseball .... not like it's a bomb (which would be a US response)

Go Team ................. !

[gmlaster]

If we suck, how is it that YOU lost?

[Pompeii]

OneTop isn't Chinese, you idiot-- is this how you handle every bit of criticism tossed in your direction?

[j0hnwi11iams]

The first hit the catcher was blocking the base line. It was all bad sportsmanship after that. Thanks for the international incident, fellas.

[markkraft]

And yet, China *LOST* 9 - 1.

Routed, really. That's the kind of score you'd expect to see from Nigeria or Peru, not China. Even the Dominican Republic does better than a 9 - 1 trouncing... and certainly, the Japanese do better than that... they just beat Canada 1 - 0. And so does Korea, who is also moving on to the semi-finals.

Frankly, it's just a sign that China can't compete in serious men's team sports. Not baseball, not basketball, where they were punk'ed by the US team like a bunch of playground children, despite having some tall players... and not football/soccer, where they are a non-entity.

Maybe they should stick to ping pong, badminton, and and the more femine arts of gymnastics, which appears more appropriate to their status as a nation.

They should feel *VERY* lucky that there's only one gold up for grabs in more serious sporting events, because it prevents them from being blown away on the medal count.

That said, it's a fair argument... why can't they field a real men's team for any popular professional sport?

[bostongreen]

this comment is absurd. Chinese people have only begun to get interested in "manly" team sports in the past ten years. They'll catch up.

[RealityZone]

Ignorant. What about boxing, weightlifting, etc? It's just that these "manly" team sports are something China has only been recently interested in. Dumb hick.

[shinxy]

Can you say "doping"?

[TianZi]

That remark was offensive and absurd on so very many levels. I'm not sure simple ignorance explains it.

[squander123]

This is a hilarious post, coming as it does from the nation which probably participates least (and least successfully) in the major international team sports which are played by the rest of the world: soccer, rugby and cricket for example. The term 'World Series' for the baseball tournament which is almost entirely national (one team from Canada, I think. Wow) says it all.

I've long thought that that particular brand of insular ignorance displayed by many Americans was a result of their dramatically lower rates of international travel by comparison to the rest of the developed world. But recently I've been developing a theory that it also has something to do with the lack of participation in genuinely international sporting life. The rest of the world routinely comes together in international competition, and this has effects which don't seem to be part of American life, such as enthusiastic support for other nations' teams when your own hasn't qualified, etc etc.

It's paradoxical, because you'd think that international competitions would encourage Jingoism, but from what I can see it seems to be the other way around. Maybe this is why so many American competitors are whining at the Olympics - because the US only competes against other countries every 4 years...

[PennLawyer]

Eddie Izzard does a brilliant bit about the US's "world" series. Americans generally don't travel.They lack intellectual curiosity and sense of history - resulting from the appalling state of education in the US. In Pennsylvania, the majority haven't visited the major cities- Philadelphia and Pittsburgh; nor adjoining states, east or west coasts, or our closest international neighbors, Mexico and Canada. They're frightened of different cultures and people - witness MarkKraft's sexist name calling of Chinese athletes as "femin" - he wants to call them girly-men, I think, although his poor spelling proves my point about educational levels. He doubtless lives at the end of the holler in Bumville, Georgia.
Most Americans haven't been to a museum, art gallery, symphony, opera, ballet, play or feel-good musical. In business entertaining, I'd have preferred taking clients to a fine restaurant and symphony - but they panicked at the prospect. The limits of their cultural comfort level was reached with reality TV or bratwursts and beer at a hockey game. One memorable afternoon a drunken baseball fan in the adjoining box at Three Rivers Stadium relieved himself in his beer cup, which he set down and kicked over. Rather than seeing new experiences as exciting learning opportunities, many Americans are too insecure and lacking in self-confidence to risk looking awkward in strange situations.
Soccer is more exciting to watch than baseball - Go Spurs! Soccer fans can be hooligans, but they're not afraid to travel to Barcelona or Hamburg or Milan to support their

[steveRB]

Isn't it funny how we, as Americans, start blaming everyone else for our problems? If it isn't the Chinese, it is the Mexicans. Based on the comments, the Chinese are responsible for a lot of our woes. The last time I checked, nobody is putting a gun to your head forcing you to buy Chinese products. American corporations love cheap Chinese labor and can't get enough of it. We can't get our financial house in order so of course it is the Chinese at fault for buying up our debt. This country has becoming a nation of whiners looking for someone to blame instead of themselves.

[biased2]

"This country has becoming a nation of whiners "
That would make this a William Philip "Phil" Gramm moment for you?
Yes, no doubt we have blame but...

[gmlaster]

You need to work on that English, Steve. You write "WE as Americans", but you follow that with the statement "forcing YOU to buy Chinese products". Steve, if you're going to fake being an American, you've really got to work on those personal pronouns. No one enjoys your trolling more than I do, but if you're going to be a troll, at least try to be a good one.

Speaking of whiners looking for someone to blame instead of themselves, maybe you can explain what your comment has to do with baseball or the fact that your team threw a kiddie tantrum when it got its ass kicked. I can understand your frustration, but Jesus, you lost 9-1! You only got one run on the scoreboard dude. This wasn't even close. How on Earth is that our fault? The fact that the suck factor on your team is sky high has nothing to do with us. Your pitcher should have beaned his own teammates, not us.

While it's true that at 9-1 you took it right up the culo with no vaseline, you could have chosen to take it like men. Instead you threw a fit like a bunch of little schoolgirls. I'd be embarrassed for you and your total lack of sportsmanship but quite honestly, I'm enjoying it too much.

[AdV2k1]

We still beat them 9-1 so thats what matters in the end. USA wins

[watchTVgetSTUPID]

Hard to find this story on the network that owns the Olympics. Their advertisers must be screaming "Damage Control"

[watchTVgetSTUPID]

Does this mean McCain will want to attack China if it helps him get elected?

[Trittydi]

Do they think this is leveling the playing field?

They SUCK!
*

[2008debate]

Couple of problems - Umpire should taken control of the game right after the collision at home. It was a poor shot on the part of the runner - slide would have done the job and not cost the career of either runner or catcher. Also once guys were getting hit - Pitcher and Manager should have been gone (plus at 9-1 it aint making too much of a difference. China (Managed by known headhunter) just watched too much MLB.TV the week before. Lets move on.

[Uberbah]

No dice - blocking home plate is an open invitation for the runner to slam into you.

[manicallday]

Can someone explain to me why they deserved to get the Olympics in the first place? They clearly were not the most suitable venue. And they cheat. They cheat in almost every Olympics. Whether it be swimmers and human growth hormone or underage kids, they have no idea what the Olympics is about. Even their athletes are suppressed. This choice did not make any sense.

[NTO08]

They DO cheat...and don't bat an eye when doing it...here is a nation that loves to cheat at sending us defective merchandise that has hurt kids and killed dogs and cats...they only care about the bottom line and winning...don't give a sh-t how they go about it. The Olympics committee better think long and hard about this...BTW: some of the scores given to Americans were way too low...definite bias to Chinese teams.

[Pompeii]

And, of course, the USA would never cheat in comparison to the Chinese. Except for Marion Jones. And Justin Gatlin. And Maurice Green. And an entire 2000 relay team. And Barry Bonds. And Jose Canseco...