How To Be Don Baylor

... or How To Turn Your Back To A Pitch To Not Get Hurt When Plunked.

(Look him up, kids!)

Sort of like Monty Python's "Getting Hit In The Head Lessons", but Completely Different. With no laugh track. The one move dumber than sliding into first base when not trying to avoid a tag? Putting up your hand when batting to try to block a pitch from hitting you. But guys do it every year. Batters get hit by pitches on every level of baseball. We're probably all going to get plunked at some point. But do not ever put up your hand to block it!

The best way to get hit by a pitch? Turn away, like putting your back to the wind, and tuck.

Our helmets work very well, as all who saw a few years ago, when Charlie Barnaby blasted one down the line. Frank Ottati had taken a short lead off third and the ball was hit so hard that Frank had little time to react as the ball hit him in the head. Frank was, thankfully, intact. But only because of his helmet (which also was intact.) The back of the helmets absolutely absorb the impact better than your face!

Better to turn your hips, and spin away about 140 degrees, not quite fully away. Better hit in the fleshy back of the shoulder, or the back or dorsal than the chest or stomach, and better your butt than your groin, or the calf than the shin bone. Your glut (butt) and dorsal are the biggest muscles in your body. The human hand has 27 bones and the wrist 8 more.


Turn and tuck your head down and behind the tricep / shoulder. Tuck your elbows and hands behind your body, shielding them from being hit. Bend slightly over and away from the mound so that what is mostly exposed is the back of your side, a butt cheek, and the back of one leg.

If it's not yet second nature to turn away, practice. Then practice more, until it becomes second nature!

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