Beanball

"Beanball" is a colloquialism used in baseball, for a ball thrown at an opposing player with the intention of striking them such as to cause harm, often connoting a throw at the player's head (or "bean" in old-fashioned slang).[1] A pitcher who throws beanballs often is known as a "headhunter". The term may be applied to any sport in which a player on one team regularly attempts to throw a ball toward the general vicinity of a player of the opposite team, but is typically expected not to hit that player with the ball. In cricket, the equivalent term is "beamer". Some people use the term "beaner", though that usage is discouraged due to its use as an ethnic slur in the United States.[2]

beanball

In baseball, a beanball is a pitch, similar to a brushback pitch but actually intended to hit the batter as it is thrown at the head. It is rarely used as a strategic weapon, and is usually an act of anger and frustration; however, batters facing known headhunters are given a reason to fear a beanball and may alter their approach to hitting in the interests of self-protection, perhaps giving some strategic advantage to the pitcher. Some pitchers have been known to throw beanballs in response to giving up home runs. Teams with heated rivalries often find several beanballs exchanged in a season.

Beanballs can sometimes lead to fights, charging the mound, and bench-clearing brawls. Because of the hazards of the pitch and the possibility of fights, umpires will now often warn teams, after beanballs or fights have occurred, that any pitcher who throws at a batter will be ejected from the game with a mandatory one day suspension for the pitcher's manager. Throwing at batters can sometimes lead to suspension for a number of games as well. Managers may also be ejected if, in the umpire's judgment, they encouraged their pitcher to throw a beanball.

Several players' careers have been impaired or derailed after being struck with a beanball. Hall of Famer Mickey Cochrane was knocked unconscious and later hospitalized for 7 days in 1937, and never played another game. In 1941, Dodgers outfielder Pete Reiser was hospitalized for a month, one of numerous injuries which shortened his career. Lou Boudreau played only sporadically after being beaned in 1951, and retired the following season. Tony Conigliaro missed over a year after being hit in the eye, and his vision later deteriorated to the point where he was forced to retire. Dickie Thon returned from a gruesome beaning in 1984, but never matched his earlier success. On September 28, 1995, Kirby Puckett, the superstar outfielder of the Minnesota Twins, was struck in the cheek by a Dennis Martínez fastball, breaking his jaw and loosening two teeth. It would be his last game; during spring training the following year he developed glaucoma, which ended his career. In 2005, the Cubs' Adam Greenberg was hit in the head with the first pitch that he faced in his major league career. Ron Santo, who thought he had lost an eye when his cheekbone was broken by a pitch in 1966, rushed back to the lineup. He described his attitude: "It was like, 'Here, hit me again.' I didn't have any fear. I just went on. When you get older, maybe fear does set in. Nobody will admit that, but it does happen." Don Zimmer, who was nearly killed by a beanball in 1953 and had four metal buttons surgically implanted in his skull, recounted, "It's not a case of being tougher than anybody else... You never know how you're going to react until you come back and play again."

Bean balls, especially those targeting the batter's head, can be extremely dangerous. Ray Chapman, the only major leaguer killed during a game, was fatally beaned, although the pitcher, Carl Mays, was not disciplined and claimed that he was given a dirty scuffed ball to throw which sailed toward Chapman's head due to the scuffing. Ottis Johnson was the last minor league player to be fatally beaned during a game. Beanballs have cut short the careers of other players, notably Mickey Cochrane, Tony Conigliaro, Dickie Thon and Kirby Puckett. Because of the grave danger of bean balls, players take beaning attempts - or what they think are beaning attempts - very seriously. This often results in charging the mound and bench-clearing brawls. Ironically, it can also lead to beanball wars, in which each team tries to retaliate for previous beanings.

Prepared the recipes for the beanballs and the pine nut cream. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place beanballs on a tray and top with about 1 cup of the marinara and all of the pine nut cream. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until pine nut cream is lightly browned, Spread more marinara sauce on one side of each roll and distribute the beanballs evenly among the sandwiches, layering the spinach leaves over top. Top liberally with more marinara sauce. Close your sandwiches, slice in half on the diagonal, and serve.

As students juggle or play catch with beanballs, they need to be able to keep a close eye on the flight path. The bright colors and easy-to-see panel design enhances tracking and reaction time. Tacky design improves handling so students can focus on the task at hand, instead of worrying about slipping or missing the ball while tossing and throwing.

Though designed primarily for juggling, teachers can easily use beanballs in a variety of PE and classroom games. Have students partake in individual juggling challenges, or pair them up for partner juggling to add an element of cooperation. Beanballs also make a great addition to relay events.

It's the last inning of a high school baseball game between arch-rivals Oak Grove and Compton. Center fielder Luke "Wizard" Wallace steps up to the plate--and is hit by a beanball, a wild pitch that shatters his skull, destroys the vision in his left eye, and changes his life forever. In this riveting novel, the events surrounding this pivotal moment are recounted through free-verse monologues by 28 different voices, including those of Luke and his Oak Grove teammates; the pitcher, Kyle Dawkins, and other Compton players; the two coaches; Luke's family members and teachers; and Sarah Edgerton, a new classmate who seems more affected by Luke's injury than his girlfriend is. With its unusual format, gripping subject matter, and economy of language, Beanball is a thought-provoking, fast-paced read. if (window['_OC_autoDir']) _OC_autoDir('search_form_input');Preview this book What people are saying - Write a reviewReviews aren't verified, but Google checks for and removes fake content when it's identifiedBEANBALLUser Review - KirkusLuke "Wizard" Wallace is a high-school athlete, more than proficient in several sports. It's baseball, though, where he really shines, as a centerfielder who can make impossible catches and as a ... Read full review

Above are the results of unscrambling beanball. Using the word generator and word unscrambler for the letters B E A N B A L L, we unscrambled the letters to create a list of all the words found in Scrabble, Words with Friends, and Text Twist. We found a total of 61 words by unscrambling the letters in beanball. Click these words to find out how many points they are worth, their definitions, and all the other words that can be made by unscrambling the letters from these words. If one or more words can be unscrambled with all the letters entered plus one new letter, then they will also be displayed.

As both user140086's and user66974's answers suggest, the term beanball as used in U.S. baseball presents some ambiguity both with regard to the pitcher's intention in throwing the pitch and with regard to whether the pitch actually strikes the batter's head (or face or batting helmet). Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary (2003) doesn't directly address these issues in its very brief entry for the term:

beanball/ben ball/beaner n./adj. A pitch thrown intentionally at a batter's head for the purpose of either moving the batter away from home plate or to punish him, his team or another player for something he has done. Pitchers who throw beanballs are supposed to be ejected from the game, but it is usually difficult for the umpire to determine that the act was premeditated. "Another Epidemic of Beanballs" read a New York Daily News headline, June 20, 1964.

Dickson asserts that a beanball isn't a beanball unless it is intentionally thrown at a batter's head. And indeed a number of early matches for "bean ball" indicate that in the 1900s and 1910s, a bean ball was a valued pitch in the repertoire of many major league pitchers. From C.E. Van Loon, "Making Good in the Big League," in Outing: Sport, Adventure, Travel Fiction (June 1910):

A "beanball" in this sense is also sometimes called a "brushback pitch" (though that term is not limited to pitches thrown at head height), a "high hard one," a "knockdown pitch," or "chin music"; and throwing such a pitch may be referred to as "dusting [the batter] off," "flipping [the batter]," or "knocking [the batter] down." A later example of beanball in this sense appears in Charles Einstein, The Second Fireside Book of Baseball (1958):

Today occasional pitchers may still get away with an occasional outlawed spitter, but that dangerous pitch has all but vanished. Just about the only survival from baseball's rowdy youth is the "accidental" beanball, the close pitch that keeps a batter honest by forcing him back from the plate, that keeps him from taking a toe hold and getting set to powder the ball.

Official acceptance of the beanball as a legitimate pitch seems to have been vanishing even before 1920, when Rex Chapman, an excellent major league player, died after being struck by a beanball thrown during a game between the New York Yankees and the Cleveland Indians.

The notion that beanball can apply to a ball that strikes a batter in the head, regardless of the whether the pitcher intended to hit the batter is evident from the results of a Google Books search for "accidental beanball." The earliest match for this phrase is from "Bill Terry's Affable Greeting Takes Newshawks By Surprise" in the Reading [Pennsylvania] Eagle (January 30, 1938): 041b061a72