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Interesting. There's an odd parallel to the Marichal/Roseboro story.

I see no such parallel, no disrespect intended to any of the parties. Unless, of course, you mean the scorn heaped on Gil McDougald after his liner drilled a hole in Herb Score's face. But there is no parallel even there: Both Kaz Ishii and Herb Score got smashed in the face by legitimately batted balls that could not possibly have been intended to injure either pitcher; John Roseboro got poleaxed over the head by an angered Juan Marichal during the Giant pitcher's time at bat in the third inning of a pennant race-heavy game in late August 1965.

But what on earth provoked the Marichal/Roseboro incident, especially since it was so out of character for either man? (Marichal was fabled as a good-natured fellow with a prankish personality - his favourite gag was said to be handing out perfume bottles spiked with stink bombs; Roseboro was known as a quiet soul with a gentle wit.) Well, I've told the story before but once more won't hurt anyone, God rest John Roseboro's soul.

Marichal's furnace got lit up while he batted in the third inning, after a) Roseboro threw a return ball to Sandy Koufax that damn near took Marichal's head off, and b) in full catching gear but holding his mask free in his hand, Roseboro in fact charged toward Marichal before the Giant pitcher swung the bat over his head. How's that again?

It happens to be true. You won't see that part in the two most famous images of the incident, but that is precisely how it happened. Earlier in the game, Marichal had brushed back a pair of plate-crowding Dodgers, Maury Wills and Ron Fairly. Big deal - that's baseball. Sandy Koufax, in kind (though his game was more to dismantle a batter by the sheer mastery of his pitching repertoire or, as Gene Mauch once said, to strip a batter naked at the plate), brushed Willie Mays back and, in the third inning, moved Marichal back off the plate a bit. Again: big deal - that's baseball.

Now, read very carefully: Roseboro, by his own subsequent admission, wanted one more pound of flesh from Marichal to send him a little message and, since Koufax wasn't exactly Mr. Intimidator (not in terms of chin music, anyway) on the mound, he decided to send the message himself. So he fumbled a Koufax pitch and retrieved it behind the catcher's box, then he threw it back to Koufax - damn near taking Marichal's head off. Marichal never saw the ball coming. Perhaps naturally enough, Juan was somewhere between shaken and infuriated by nearly getting skulled from behind. (Various Giant and Dodger players have since remembered Marichal screaming at Roseboro, "Why did you do that? Why did you do that?")

Roseboro had his catcher's mask off and in his hand and actually charged a bit toward Marichal, who probably feared in the heat of those moments (you'd find very few batters who wouldn't be unnerved and maybe slightly enraged at a catcher - throwing from behind, leaving them no room to duck or otherwise defend themselves - firing a hard throw just next to their heads) that a man who'd just tried to skull him from behind with a high hard one to the head might even swing the heavy mask at him. And that was when he swung his bat over Roseboro's head in that momentary but long enough blind rage.

You won't see that in the most famous film image of the incident: Marichal's bat waving back for a possible one more swing as a swarm of Giants and Dodgers surround him and Roseboro. Nor in the most famous still photo of the incident: a visibly shaken Koufax trying to knock the bat out of Marichal's hands without it hitting his left hand, as Roseboro is falling away from Marichal. But that is in fact what happened. There's no excuse on earth for what Marichal did, of course - there can never be, and Marichal knew it - but it is long past time to put to rest the mythology of the incident and let the truth breathe. And there is no parallel between that grotesquery and what happened to either Herb Score or Kazuhisa Ishii.