Umpire deliberately hit in face by pitch?

The first time I saw the video below, I was sure I was seeing a pitcher deliberately throw a ball to hit the umpire in the face, because if you look at the catcher, he's deliberately bringing down his glove and ducking his own head as if he expected it - and I have NEVER seen a catcher react like that. [At least, not when the ball is obviously high. If it's in the dirt, you have to lean over it to deaden it off your chest protector...but this ball was clearly high.]

But, if you watch closely, the ball actually appears to hit the batter on the helmet first, and then ricochets and hits the umpire's mask. Yet, because the batter doesn't react at all as if he'd been hit - which if it hit his helmet you would have thought he would have had some reaction! such as heading towards first immediately instead of trying to stop the runner at third from coming home...

But this pitcher can't have been throwing that hard...




What's really sad about this is the reaction of the people in the stands. You can hear them cheering. Some reports of this incident say that the umpire was swearing at the players...but seems to me the coaches would have said something if this was the case - not put it on the players to get their revenge.

In addition, apparently the pitcher and catcher had a meeting on the mound just before this pitch...

However...I'm still prepared to believe that the pitcher *was* trying to hit the ump, and just got the batter first by mistake...

Meantime...

If you do a google search on "coach tells pitcher to hit batter" (in particular in the News category) you'll find dozens of examples through the years of grown men telling little children, and big children, to throw at batters. Not to mention the fine example of professional baseball players - pitchers who throw at batters because a previous batter hit a home run, or because one of their players got plunked, etc.

The latest "outrage" is because a female coach told one of her young pitchers to hit an opposing batter. (Gee, a kid of 8 years old or so couldn't throw a ball with enough force to hurt anyone...). There's lots of comments on the website reporting this, claiming that this female coach just didn't know the game of baseball, and I'm thinking to myself, what are those idiots smoking? She's just following a long line of male coaches who've done exactly the same thing.