Who ever said baseball isn’t a contact sport?

Baseball is unlike almost every other professional sport in that one player can use the ball as a weapon to intentionally injure another player. You don’t see Kobe throwing basketballs in the face of Labron James and you won’t see Eli Manning launching footballs into the masks of Patriot linemen – it doesn’t have the same effect.

Baseball on the other hand is played by an ethical code unique to the game – a code that says ‘throw at my guy, I throw at your guy’. Usually this means that if a player on one team is hit by a pitch, they will throw at a batter on the other team – usually that team’s best hitter – in order to even the playing field and to make a statement.

Of course some batters are hit unintentionally, and some are dealt chin-music with the intent to seriously injure. But intent aside, these are the 10 Great Baseball Beanings Caught At Just The Right Moment (well, a few aren’t really beanings but I couldn’t justify omitting them).

Saaaaaawing and a… cockshot.