Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez has chimed in with his opinion about the pitch that Boston Red Sox pitcher Matt Barnes threw behind Baltimore Orioles third baseman Manny Machado's head.
"I would react the same way except I would try to keep the ball lower. The ribs -- the ribs down. Butt cheek. Legs. But ribs," Martinez told the Boston Herald. "I aimed all the time to the ribcage -- boom! And I was a sharpshooter, too. You rarely saw me right over the head. It would be the ribs."
Martinez is simply casting himself as an old-school guy who adheres to baseball's unwritten rules. Peter Schmuck of The Baltimore Sun say that practice must soon come to an end.
"We now live in a world where we know the horrible short-term and long-term consequences of a serious concussion," wrote Schmuck. "We also live in a baseball world where the macho benefits of hitting some guy to show a teammate you have his back is far outweighed by the competitive disadvantage of the multigame suspension that generally follows.
"Martinez was one of the greatest pitchers ever and he was a tough guy on the mound in spite of his diminutive size, but he hasn't been out of the game that long. It's no longer the Stone Age and the commissioner's office should put an end to this kind of foolishness by throwing the book at anyone who tries to hurt an opposing player.
"Just don't throw it at anybody's head. Just the ribs or the butt cheek."
Insurance pick
Michigan tight end Jake Butt presumably would have rather gotten out of the Orange Bowl healthy and been drafted in the early rounds of the NFL Draft.
But in a year when elite prospects Leonard Fournette and Christian McCaffrey sat out bowl games to avoid injury, Butt played and tore his ACL. He at least had an insurance policy to fall back on.
The Denver Broncos took Butt with the first pick of the fifth round. Butt probably would have been a top-75 pick if healthy, perhaps a second-round pick with a small chance of sneaking into the first round. But with each pick that passed after the middle of the third round, Butt was making money.
ESPN's Adam Schefter and Darren Rovell reported that Butt made $543,000, tax free, due to his draft fall. He made about $10,000 for each pick that passed without him being selected, ESPN said, starting in the middle of the third round. The maximum of that loss-of-value insurance policy was $2 million.
Engaged
A former University of Michigan basketball player who survived two deadly plane crashes in his youth is engaged.
Austin Hatch, 22, proposed Friday to 21-year-old Abby Cole during the college's graduation weekend. Cole, a former Wolverines volleyball player, promptly said yes.
Hatch was a Michigan basketball player his freshman year and later a team assistant, but he's now focusing on academics in the school's College of Literature, Science & the Arts.
Hatch had just committed to the Wolverines when his father and stepmother were killed in a 2011 airplane crash in Charlevoix, Mich., that left him in a coma for weeks.
The Fort Wayne, Ind., native also survived a 2003 Indiana airplane crash that killed his mother, sister and brother.
Hatch's father was piloting both planes.
Sports quiz
What number did Pedro Martinez wear while he was with the Boston Red Sox?
Sports answer
45
Sports on 04/30/2017