“That’s for Nastia Liukin!”

In Chinese baseball, is it considered dirty to try to plow into the catcher to knock the ball out of the catcher’s mitt? Is there a rule over there that the runner has to slide feet first into the catcher? Furthermore, is a roll block tumble into second to take out the second baseman or shortstop on a double play considered dirty in China?

Was the ball flip to the dugout.

The second collision at the plate wasn’t necessary. I don’t condone throwing at a guy’s head, but I think throwing at a guy is acceptable there. As for the celebration on the HR…it seems strange considering they were down 9 runs at the time, but I’m not going to lose in sleep over it. All in all it seemed like it would have been a very strange game to be at.

My guess is if that chain of events took place at a Yankees-Red Sox game we would hear about it on ESPN for at least a week.

and I have to say, the ball thrown by the Chinese pitcher was a straight up beanball. I don’t care what has happened earlier in the game, there is no excuse and no place for trying to remove a man’s head from his shoulders with a fastball. The Chinese pitcher should immediately be removed from international play. Lefebvre needs to be suspended from managing because I’m not sure a pitcher on a team formed just three years ago would have taken it upon himself to try to take out an opposing player by throwing at his head. That could very easily have gotten so much worse. LaPorta has a mild concussion, but he could very well have been permanently disabled or even killed. Throwing at someone’s head is childish and dangerous. I also saw the plays at the plate and while I can see the argument for the second play being a little more rough than it should have been, rough play at the plate has been around as long as the game has been. It has to be expected but the opposing team needs to find a better way to get revenge than trying to permanently remove one of the opposition players. Leave a mark, put the ball between the shoulder blades just not between the ears.

Seems that the IOC wants an MLB dream team like in basketball.

screamed when La Porta was plunked….

I’m always skeptic about baseball in Olympic games but I support them as far as they play with the flag….and 4 Dragons are included in the team, including Dome’s close and same-age friend Masahiro Araki…. Dome is talking about him in his recent diary, hoping him play well there.

Anyhow, Japan just shocked 3-time Olympic Champion US in Softball to win gold in Beijing, and I am so happy as Japan’s 1st base woman, Rie Sato, is my close friend’s sister. She only played as pinch runner in Athens 4 years ago, but this time she bats 5th and hit monster 3-run homer against China to win 3-0.

US was so dominating for recent decades in Beijing, both pitching and batting, but Japan nailed down their last chance… hope Softball will come back to Olympic games as it is VERY different sports with baseball…