Great idea for a rules change.

It looked to me like ALL the batters for Japan and Korea were wearing the elbow guards.

Hip stuff!

This will be very bad news for any future robot ballplayers.

I have a problem with the way Estes pitched Bonds in the 6th inning when there were runners on base. They went around him walking him after a 3-1 count and ended up giving up 3 runs on the inning. They were lucky it wasn't more.

The Giants were lucky to get three. They couldn't hit the ball out of the infield.

Eh, Craig Biggio has been doing that for years.

Ditto, David. Shin & foot padding I can accept. Not elbow pads.

It still hurts when you get hit in an elbow pad though. Obviously not as much as if you got hit flush, but it still does sting. If you don't allow somebody to get a base in that situation, then what if somebody flips up a 55 mph curveball that grazes the jersey? Does that not count then either?

as a cards fan, i've been beseeching the baseball gods for a rules change for years, watching biggio get hit by pitches on his arm protection. please, please, change the rules! uniforms are mandatory, body armor is optional. get hit on optional gear? it's a ball. period.

unless their elbow is dragging in the strike zone (i'm talking to you, biggio). in which case it's a strike.

There more or less is a rule -

Rule 6.08

The batter becomes a runner and is entitled to first base without liability to be put out (provided he advances to and touches first base) when... (b) He is touched by a pitched ball which he is not attempting to hit unless (1) The ball is in the strike zone when it touches the batter, or (2) The batter makes no attempt to avoid being touched by the ball; If the ball is in the strike zone when it touches the batter, it shall be called a strike, whether or not the batter tries to avoid the ball. If the ball is outside the strike zone when it touches the batter, it shall be called a ball if he makes no attempt to avoid being touched.

So Bonds and every ball player do have a reason to get out of the way regardless of how much protective "armor" they don. I didn't see the play so I don't know if he made an attempt or not but it's my feeling that this should be a discussion centered around the enforcement of existing rules, not the proposal of new ones.

The "get out of the way" rule is pretty lax. It seems if you just move a millimeter, they give you the base. Don Baylor used to just turn his back to the ball, actually turn into the path of the ball, and he'd get a base.

with bonds you should have to hit him in the face to draw a base.

I think it's a bit much to ask umps to determine if a ball hit armor or not, a better rule in my mind is to force players to remove the stuff before they run. Not like they do now by handing it to the first base coach, but they aren't allowed to leave the batters box with the stuff on. Let's see how long Jason Giambi wears his arm band after he grounds out 8-3 because he had to take time to remove his armor

I was with you David up until Joe came up with his idea...I would love to see guys get thrown out on balls over the centerfielers head because their velcro got snagged. Hillarious image and a great way to ban (for all intents and purposes) body armor.

Hey, if I had over a thousand baseballs thrown in my general direction each year I'd be wearing some kind of protection too. Granted the protection probably gives an extra confidence boost to hanging in a bit longer but these guy's bodies are their livlihood. I think there just needs to be some standardization to the equipment a la NHL goalies.

I did like the bean ball in the face idea though.

CRQ has it right. The rules already account for this issue. Adding rules because umps don't enforce the existing ones correctly isn't going to help. Besides, we're talking about a "problem" that doesn't really exist. Over ten ballgames, count the HBP's. Then count the number of those that fall into this discussion. We're talking, really, about a few instances all season. I can't see changing the rules for that.

Very late to this thread, but the one rule I'd like changed is on foul-tips off the end of the bat. There is nothing more egregious than to see a ball thrown at a batter, who tries to get out of the way, and then the ball hits the bat behind his head or on the nub by his hands and is called a strike. It shouldn't be a strike unless he tries to hit it.