When last UmpBump cast its wary eye on Olympic baseball, we were bemused to see that the IOC and something called the “International Baseball Federation” (presumably, the precursor to the United Federation of Planets) had actually changed the rules of the game:

Each team’s at-bat in the 11th inning and beyond will begin with runners on first and second bases. Teams may start the 11th at any point in their batting order under format changes announced Friday…

This transmogrification of the actual rules of baseball was hard enough to swallow. But now we have learned that, in addition to having a communist government with an appalling human rights record and being big ol’ dirty polluters (and worse still, not yet banning UmpBump), the Chinese have failed to instill in their team the proper respect for the sport’s unwritten rules.

In the fifth, top prospect-turned-Olympian Matt LaPorta crashed into catcher Wang Wei, who then, regrettably, had to leave the game. In the sixth, Nate Schierholtz bowled over Wang’s replacement, Yang Yang, while attempting to score on a sac fly. Yang, who was incensed and had to be restrained by teammates from attacking Schierholtz, later went on to score China’s only run of the game on a solo homer and allegedly pimped it in a fashion better suited to a Manny Ramirez walkoff bomb than a 9-1 rout.

China’s manager, who is 1965 Rookie of the Year Jim Lefebvre, argued that Schierholtz’s slide was illegal. However, it was LaPorta who bore the brunt of the Chinese team’s wrath as it was he who was beaned with a pitch in the seventh inning. LaPorta lay on the ground for several minutes before finally leaving the field, and was later diagnosed with a concussion. (By the end of the game, five Americans and two Chinese had been hit by pitches.)

C’mon, China. Your repressive regime and lead-infused toys are bad enough. Do you have to mess up basebrawls too? Everyone knows that in games that count, the runner is honor-bound to try and knock over the catcher. And everyone knows that if a retaliatory pitch is required, it is properly aimed at the ribcage or the backside. If you want the respect of the wider world, you’ll have to do better than this.

So I look at the leaderboards today, and I notice that White Sox leftfielder Carlos Quentin has already been plunked 6 times this year, and is on pace to get nailed 39 times by the end of the season. If he could maintain that pace, he would be in pretty elite company – the all time record for HBP in a season is Ron Hunt’s astonishing 50 in 1971, followed by Don Baylor’s 35 in 1986, and Craig Biggio’s 34 in 1997.

Of course, that plucky munchkin David Eckstein has also been plunked 6 times so far, and Reed Johnson of the Cubs has been hit 5 times, but who is most likely to keep up the insane pace?

The answer is clearly Quentin, who has already demonstrated that he is the greatest at getting hit by pitches in the history of the game. So far in his pro career, Carlos Quentin has been hit by a pitch every 16 plate appearances. This is an insanely high rate, when you consider that modern master Biggio was hit every 43.8, 80’s champ Baylor was plunked every 35.2, and HBP god Ron Hunt was hit “only” every 25.3 plate appearances.

In 2004, Quentin set the all-time minor league record for getting hit by the pitch by getting plunked 43 times across 2 levels, and in 2005, he set the all-time Pacific Coast League record for HBP by getting hit 29 times.

And Quentin’s propensity for getting hit by the pitch didn’t just start in the pros either. When I was at Stanford, he set the NCAA Division I record by getting hit by 5 pitches in a single game against Florida State. 5 plate appearances, 5 HBP! That was insane.

So get used to seeing images like the photo above, because going forward, if Quentin can avoid the injury bug that has plagued him thus far in his major league career, you can expect him to mount a serious threat to Ron Hunt’s record each and every season.