From the Karl Rove school of good sportsmanship

Which sucks more, being disgraced Republican Congressman Mark Foley, or this guy?

UNIONTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A youth baseball coach convicted of trying to pay a child to bean an autistic teammate so he couldn't play was sentenced Thursday to one to six years in prison.

Mark R. Downs Jr., 29, was convicted by a jury in September of corruption of minors and criminal solicitation to commit simple assault.

Authorities said Downs offered to pay the 8-year-old player $25 to hit the 9-year-old mildly autistic teammate with a ball during warmups for a June 2005 playoff game.

The younger boy testified at trial that, on Downs' instructions, he purposely threw a ball that hit his teammate in the groin, then threw another ball that hit him in the ear. The 9-year-old was bruised on the ear.

(Insert getting-hit-by-balls-in -prison joke here).