Hey! Remember Julio Castillo, a pitcher on the Cubs’ minor league affiliate in Peoria with a second-grade education who sent a person to the hospital when he whipped a ball into the stands last July in a bench clearing brawl? Turns out, he wasn’t actually trying to hit anyone:
Cubs minor-league pitcher Julio Castillo, accused of throwing a baseball that injured a fan in Ohio, testified Thursday that he threw the ball downward toward a dugout to try to keep opposing players from rushing the field during an on-field melee.
“I saw that the players with the Dragons were coming,” Castillo said, testifying through an interpreter. “I was nervous and frightened. I threw the ball in front of the dugout to see if they would go back. I didn’t throw it to hit anyone.”
It’ll be interesting to see how this argument shakes out, considering he is a professional pitcher who can thread a baseball into a catcher’s glove from 60 feet, 6 inches away, yet somehow can miss a fence along the ground in front of a dugout from less than 20 feet away and it sails into a crowd of hundreds instead. I’m thinking a guilty verdict of felonious assault.
