Baseball: Dangerously lenient suspension for Kennedy?

Earlier this week,I wrote about a fight (well, two actually) in a game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Arizona Diamondbacks. At the end of the article, I mentioned that suspensions would eventually be handed out, and today the news of those suspensions has come through, with 5 players and 3 coaches to miss some time, while they and 4 others also received fines.

There were several circumstances that brought about the tension, and eventual breakdown into chaos on the field. But the short story is this: Ian Kennedy, the Diamondbacks’ starting pitcher on the day, intentionally threw a baseball at the head of another player. Kennedy was banned for 10 games. Except, Kennedy is a starting pitcher, and every Major League team has a rotation of 5. So Kennedy will probably miss 2 games in which he would actually have pitched in. Two. For intentionally throwing a hard leather ball at the head of another player at 90 miles per hour. This came after both sides had already received a warning for hitting batters, including another hit to the head by Kennedy.

Meanwhile, infielder Eric Hinske will be suspended for 5 games. As an everyday player, he’ll miss more games than Kennedy, for “aggressive actions during the incidents”. None of which, as far as I could make out, involved risking a serious head injury by throwing a pitch at another man’s head.

Hinske’s actions were stupid, there’s no denying that. He was childish and misguided and violent, and he fully deserves to be punished, as does any player or coach involved, whose actions were too over the top in the eyes of the officials. And yes, fighting and throwing punches can be dangerous. Of course, Zach Greinke’s decision to intentionally throw at a Diamondbacks’ player in retaliation was reckless and stupid too, but he escaped without suspension, as the league shows that, unlike the recent trends in most sports, it values tradition and unwritten laws over player safety.

But what Kennedy did was hard to forgive. The rules, written and unwritten, were all against him, and the league had an opportunity to send a message about to show that this kind of play is simply not tolerated. Instead, Kennedy will miss 10 games, 8 of which, at least, he wouldn’t have played in anyway. A reminder – the baseball season is 162 games long. His suspension equates to about 2.5 games for an EPL player, or 1 for an IPL player.

Even worse, Kennedy’s teammate, Brandon McCarthy, suffered a head injury of his own last year, which is apparently still plaguing him now. So Kennedy, and MLB, know exactly how serious this could’ve ended. The decision to hand out such a weak ban baffles me nearly as much as what Kennedy did in the first place. Baseball might not seem like such a dangerous sport, but when an opportunity arises to make things safer for their players, the answer should be obvious to any governing body. They’re your biggest (and in some ways only) asset, and, more importantly, real people. Look after them.