Malicious Contact - should there be more of a penalty

[greymule]

Fouls resulting from illegal contact are a significant part of football, basketball, and hockey. The routine violations are not unsportsmanlike--players commit them usually simply because they have been beaten on a play. If you can outmaneuver your opponent, he may have to foul you, hold you, interfere with you, etc. Therefore, the rules contain specific penalties to be applied for the various offenses and levels of violation. And flagrant fouls and unsportsmanlike conduct are treated more seriously than ordinary violations.

But baseball contact fouls are much rarer. The kind of violations Pete mentioned are not routine--an umpire may go a whole season without seeing one--so their effect on a play is not as thought out and defined as it is in the other sports. We don't have umpires announcing "punched the second baseman, that's an out and the other runner returns" or "tripped the runner as he was rounding third, the runner scores and F5 sits out two innings."

I'll go with OBR, where the unsportsmanlike offense is handled separately from the play. But I do think that malicious play should be penalized severely off the field. The same goes for players who kick dirt on or spit on umpires. Throw him out, suspend him, even arrest him, but if he scored and then did it, the run still counts.