THE HISTORY OF CHARGING THE MOUND, EPISODE 2

TL;DR

Mike Sweeney, baseball's nicest man, charged Jeff Weaver in 2001 over a rosin bag dispute — before a pitch was even thrown.

Key Points

• 1.The episode's main event is the rarest mound charging in the dataset. Sweeney's 2001 charge is the only one among 264 analyzed where the batter charged before any pitch was thrown, triggered by a rosin bag placement dispute and Weaver's profanity.
• 2.Roger Clemens's 1991 intentional beaning of John Shelby set up the episode's theme. Clemens, frustrated after back-to-back homers, threw an obvious beanball; Shelby charged with his bat — a categorical no-no — but was tackled by catcher John Marzano.
• 3.Jeff Weaver's history of intentional beanballs established his volatile reputation. In 1999, Weaver deliberately hit Manny Ramirez in retaliation for Jared Wright hitting Tony Clark; Weaver stated he didn't mean to hit Ramirez in the head, not that he didn't mean to hit him.
• 4.Mike Sweeney was uniquely beloved despite playing for a chronically cheap, losing franchise. The Royals, owned by Walmart CEO David Glass from 2000 to 2019, went 30 years between World Series titles; over 515 games were played when a division title was mathematically impossible.
• 5.Division rivalry data showed surprisingly little correlation with mound charging frequency. All three of baseball's most frequent mound-charging pairs — Detroit-Chicago, Detroit-Cleveland, Cleveland-Kansas City — come from the AL Central, but overall, teams are not more likely to fight division rivals.
• 6.Sweeney's attack was improvised, tactically poor, and self-injuring. He missed Weaver with his helmet, scored a takedown, then threw cheap shots at a pinned Robert Fick — ultimately spraining his own wrist and receiving a 10-game suspension, one of the harshest on record.
• 7.Sweeney's pattern of defending causes that didn't need defending extended off the field. He appeared in a muddled 2006 anti-stem-cell-research ad during the World Series, and challenged a Mariners teammate to a fight for allegedly leaking Ken Griffey Jr.'s clubhouse nap story.
• 8.Sweeney apologized to Weaver five years later in a call Weaver had completely forgotten. Sweeney wept recounting it on a 2007 DVD; Weaver's entire recollection was 'yeah, it's cool, whatever' — while Weaver went on to win Game 5 of the 2006 World Series, a title Sweeney never came close to.