He's lucky he wasn't in Ontario at the time:

"On August 4, 1983, Dave Winfield, while warming up before the 5th inning of a game at Toronto's Exhibition Stadium, accidentally killed a seagull with a thrown ball. He doffed his cap in mock sorrow. Fans responded by hurling obscenties and improvised missiles. After the game, he was brought to the Ontario Provincial Police station on charges of cruelty to animals and was forced to post a $500 bond before being released. Quipped Yankees manager Billy Martin, "It's the first time he's hit the cutoff man." The charges were dropped the following day."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Winfield

In support of the upcoming PETA protest that is sure to follow, I will protest nekkid (next time I'm in the shower). For those with a vivid imagination, my most sincere appologies ;-)

I was at that game against the Yanks. In fact I was there for the whole 4 game series.

Winfield was tossing the ball around with Steve Kemp, saw the bird, motioned to Kemp "hey watch this," and then nailed the thing with a 75-100 foot laser of a toss.

It was actually one heck of a throw.

The Toronto fans started getting on Winfield, so Winfield started bending over and offering his ass to the crowd in the bleachers.

Then the whole thing blew up in the press.

All of a sudden, Winfield is now my favorite ball player.

I think it was Randy Johnson who hit a small bird (which pretty well exploded)while pitching in a real game. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

Here you go, a video of a bird being pretty much atomized by intersecting with a fastball: http://tinyurl.com/p4k94

I remmeber the assaults of both Winfield and Johnson. Both were great. This is so much more fun than terrorist talk!

I think the original poster's conclusion re: the pitcher's ability is suspect.

Perhaps the seagull was trying to, er, fowl off the pitch....