Jim Palmer played for Earl Weaver and knew firsthand Weaver’s belief that hitting batters as retaliation made no sense, and in conversation Friday afternoon he quickly recalled the anecdote that best exemplified Weaver’s perspective.

Grant Jackson, a pitcher, joined the Orioles through a trade, and he had not been indoctrinated with what was referred to as the Oriole Way. Palmer recalls that when Jackson reflexively fired a pitch at an opposing hitter, Weaver went to the mound and pointed at Baltimore’s third baseman, Brooks Robinson, and asked Jackson rhetorically: Who is better -- our guy, or their guy? Brooks Robinson. Of course. Weaver then pointed at the Baltimore shortstop, Mark Belanger, and the second baseman, Davey Johnson, asking the same question, and as Palmer remembered, Weaver pointed around the whole field, like a professor hammering home a point. He did not want Jackson or any other Orioles pitcher escalating an incident into a beanball war that would get a teammate hurt.

Palmer hit just 38 batters in 558 big league games, almost all of them accidental. In a game between the Orioles and the Yankees in 1976, New York’s Dock Ellis yelled to the Orioles’ dugout that the next guy who tried to bunt would get a pitch thrown at his head. Reggie Jackson -- in Baltimore for a one-year detour on his way to free agency -- screamed back that Ellis should throw at him, and in the eighth inning Ellis did just that, drilling Jackson in the face. (There are more details in this piece.) Palmer remembers Jackson being taken away from Memorial Stadium in an emergency vehicle.

Weaver said to Palmer: “We can’t let that happen.”

Palmer knew what Weaver was saying, in code. The leadoff hitter for the Yankees in the top of the ninth was Palmer’s former teammate and friend, Elrod Hendricks, and after Hendricks flied out, Palmer hit the next batter, Mickey Rivers. “It was the only time ever that Earl did that,” Palmer recalled.

From 1969 through 1982, Weaver’s first 14 seasons as the manager, the Orioles’ pitchers hit a total of 274 batters, by far the fewest in the majors, and in that time, Baltimore reached the playoffs six times, and the World Series four times. Weaver demonstrated that retaliation wasn’t a precursor to success.

Late in Palmer’s career, in 1982, he remembers how rookie Cal Ripken -- whose father was a longtime player and coach in the Orioles’ organization -- batted in the first inning against Britt Burns of the White Sox in a July game. A pitch in that at-bat prompted Ripken to say out loud, “When is somebody going to protect somebody around here?”

Palmer wasn’t thrilled about Ripken’s tone, which was unusual for a rookie, but he noticed that Carlton Fisk was due to lead off the next inning. Palmer disliked how Fisk wore his uniform and, fixated on that, he hit Fisk on purpose. The score was 0-0 at the time, as the box score shows, and Palmer noted that in conversation. He hit the leadoff hitter in a 0-0 game. The issue of winning or losing the game had become secondary to the retaliation.

Palmer paused, and added: “My one moment of stupidity in 20 years.”

• Years later, Orioles pitchers would say that Ripken would discourage them from getting into beanball wars -- part of the Oriole Way, but perhaps because Ripken understood that if there was to be retaliation against Baltimore, there would be a good chance that he, as Baltimore’s best player, would get thrown at.

But Ripken and a teammate who was a rising star were both injured amid a series of beanballs between the Orioles and Mariners in June of 1993. Mike Mussina was pitching for Baltimore and it was never really his inclination to throw at hitters. He believed that if an opponent got a big hit against him, then it was his responsibility to make a better pitch.

In that game against the Mariners, however, Mussina was instructed to throw at Mariners catcher Bill Haselman. He followed orders, Haselman charged the mound, and in the fight, Mussina was thrown onto his shoulder, an injury that would linger. Over his next seven starts, Mussina had an 8.50 ERA, and the shoulder injury eventually force him onto the disabled list. After that, Mussina made up his mind that he would never follow instructions to hit anybody.

As the pile of bodies formed around Mussina and Haselman, Ripken -- one of the larger players on the field -- was twisted in the mass of humanity, injuring his knee. What reporters did not know was that in the hours that followed, Ripken was unsure whether he would be able to play the next day, and continue the consecutive-game streak that would become the most significant part of Ripken’s legacy. A week later, he told the Baltimore Sun, "There was a fear factor because I had never injured either of my knees before … I woke up, and it was very stiff. It was difficult to do anything on it. Early in the morning it didn't seem like I was going to able to play."

Two injuries, to two of the most important players in Orioles history, for the sake of one moment of retaliation.

• Palmer broadcasts games for the Orioles, and he made an interesting point about Matt Barnes, who was suspended after throwing a pitch behind the head of Manny Machado April 23: Barnes had barely missed Machado’s face, and if Barnes had hit him, this is for what he would be remembered.

Jack Hamilton pitched eight years in the majors, pitching in 218 games, and what he is known for, mostly, is for hitting Boston’s Tony Conigliaro just below his left eye in 1967, altering the trajectory of Conigliaro’s career and his life.

Carl Mays won 209 games over 15 years, with a 2.92 ERA, and pitched in the World Series in four different years. He got some Hall of Fame votes in 1958. What he is mostly remembered for, however, is throwing the pitch that killed Ray Chapman in this August game in 1920.

Dickie Thon was a rising star, 25 years old, when he was hit by a pitch in the face in 1984, and he was never close to being the same caliber of player after returning. Mickey Cochrane was a Hall of Fame catcher whose career ended when he was hit by a pitch in 1937. Kirby Puckett was hit in the face by a Dennis Martinez pitch in September of 1995. That was the last pitch of Puckett’s career; the following spring, the future Hall of Famer retired, his vision never the same. David Wright was hit in the head by Matt Cain in 2009, and for years afterward, Wright flinched whenever a pitcher spun a curveball inside.

All of these injuries, among many, many others, should be reminders that a pitch intentionally thrown at an opposing hitter carries the potential for altering a life forever.

• Andy Pettitte of the Yankees did not like to throw at hitters, believing that there was something very wrong about it, and in his first years as a New York starter he was something of a conscientious objector. Pettitte was well-liked by his teammates, earnest and honest, but occasionally his refusal to retaliate bothered other players. There was once a team meeting in which some of the position players expressed frustration over how they felt they weren’t being protected with retaliation by the team’s pitchers, and Pettitte was foremost in the mind of some of those in the room. Jeff Nelson and other New York relievers felt that too often they were expected to clean up retaliation business left untended by Pettitte.

In the first series the Yankees played after 9/11 in 2001, the Yankees faced the White Sox in Chicago. Kip Wells -- a hard-throwing right-hander with erratic command -- drilled Bernie Williams in the side of the head in the top of the first inning. Williams lay on the ground in pain, his feet kicking.

In the bottom of the first, Pettitte took the mound for the Yankees, and with one out and a runner at first, Pettitte smoked Magglio Ordonez with a fastball. What happened seemed apparent -- in this emotional time, Pettitte had hit Ordonez on purpose because he, like Williams, was the No. 3 hitter in the lineup for his team.

Pettitte was quiet when asked after the game when asked if he had targeted Ordonez, and turned into his locker. “I don’t want to talk about that,” he said quietly.

Baseball Tonight Podcast

On the podcast last week:

Friday: In the aftermath of Jose Bautista being hit by a pitch, Karl Ravech and Justin Havens on the stupidity of retaliation and the early excellence of Jose Berrios; Rockies first baseman Mark Reynolds, on the adjustment that has worked for him the past couple of years; Jason Beck of MLB.com on the Tigers.

Thursday: Cubs GM Jed Hoyer on Jake Arrieta, Kyle Schwarber and the natural evolution of Cubs fans; Jerry Crasnick on the Mets’ injuries; Marly Rivera of ESPN Deportes on the Astros’ hot start, and Starlin Castro.

Wednesday: A conversation with Houston’s Brian McCann about the Astros, David Ross and what Derek Jeter yelled at him during the retirement ceremony; Tim Kurkjian on the early excellence of Craig Kimbrel and Yu Darvish; and Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer about the Indians.

Tuesday: Boog Sciambi on MLB’s most and least athletic teams; Sarah Langs plays the Numbers Game; Nick Piecoro on the Diamondbacks’ Zack Greinke strategy, as we begin to move within range of the trade deadline.

Monday: Keith Law defines "small sample size" and how it applies to early hot and cold starts across the MLB landscape; Todd Radom’s uniform and logo quiz, and the No. 20 greatest logo of all time; Derek Jeter interview.

A special Call To the Legends podcast, with all the sounds and voices around the retirement of Derek Jeter’s No. 2 -- his speech at Yankee Stadium, his visit to the Sunday Night Baseball booth, Joe Torre, Yankees scout Dick Groch, and Jeter’s extensive interview with Karl Ravech.

And today will be better than yesterday.