SLASH PLAY - Run it occasionally with the right player, and if we see the D using the Wheel Play....goal is to hit it up the middle where SS is vacating. We aren't trying to pull the ball and hurt the corner IF's, but at the same time, if they come in under control, at the high school level they should be pretty safe in about 95% of the situations.
THROWING AT A HITTER - I've posted over the years about my acceptance about throwing at a hitter. In the "old" days of my coaching, we worked with the pitchers about when/if it needed to be done (very rarely), and how to do it to send a message; not with intent to injure. Haven't instructed like that in 15+ years, and haven't told a player to do it in that long either.
That said, if you have a problem with it on general principle, I understand that and am fine with it. I've never quite understood those who say "Well, I'm against hitting a batter, but it is ok to throw up and in to move his feet". My feeling is that if my player were going to try to "plunk" a batter in the butt or thigh, or even the ribs, he is much less likely to miss and cause damage than the kid who is trying to pitch high and tight and misses in; that kid will probably hit a batter in the head, face, neck.
Additionally, while I have had one or two 90+ guys in my time, the majority are upper 70 and low 80's guys. If they hit a kid in the leg, butt, ribs, will it hurt? Yeah, it will. But you know what? It hurts the same whether it was intentional or not. And quite honestly, the likelihood that a kid will get seriously injured by a fastball to the middle of the body is MUCH smaller than a kid getting hurt in football, wrestling, basketball.
In my roughly 30 years of coaching I've seen inuries by pitchers getting hit by batted balls, kids hurt on hard slides, collisions at plates, kids running into fences and each other, heck, even a kid hit when an on-deck batter let go of a bat. But every kid I can remember getting hit by a pitch (thank god) ended up with a bruise or stitch marks, soreness for a few days, and some bragging rights. May not be ideal, but it's true.