One pitch.

One controversial pitch. What happened in less than two seconds during a high school baseball state title game on May 31 has engulfed a northeast Georgia school in a heated debate that rages online and has reached major-league baseball.

Captured on video, that one pitch by Stephens County High School's Cody Martin has been played more than 400,000 times on YouTube alone.

Because of that pitch, the school has been warned and fined, the umpire it hit has retained a lawyer, and a college banned the catcher involved from playing there next year.

All because of one pitch.

What happened is clearly visible on the video: Stephens County's Martin throws a pitch that catcher Matt Hill does not come close to catching. Hill ducks, and the ball strikes umpire Jeff Scott in the face mask.

Neither Cody Martin nor Hill will speak about it.

The Stephens County coach, Mark Gosnell, said the players told him they had gotten mixed up on what pitch Martin was throwing.

Did they do it on purpose?

Before you can answer that, there is much to consider.

It wasn't just any game. It was the state championship game. Stephens County was trying to win its first title in 35 years.

But Stephens County fell behind early and managed only one hit off Cartersville pitcher Chris Huth.

The Indians lost the title game so badly, 13-1, the "mercy" rule was invoked after 4 innings because they were losing by more than 10 runs.

At one point, nine Stephens County batters in a row struck out.

With their season slipping away, Stephens County players griped with each other and Scott, the home-plate umpire, according to witnesses.

In the top of the fourth, the 5-foot-6 Huth faced 6-foot-3 Ethan Martin, Stephens County's all-American and a soon-to-be first-round draft pick for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Huth struck him out, his ninth consecutive strikeout.

Martin argued with Scott and threw his helmet into the dugout. (Martin later said he "tossed it.") Said Cartersville catcher Taylor Hightower, "They were frustrated."

Martin's younger brother, Cody Martin, was pitching for Stephens County, which was now losing 8-1. In the bottom half of the inning, Cartersville's first batter reached base, bringing up Hightower. The first pitch from Martin was a strike.

For the second pitch, Hill, the catcher, set up in his crouch.

Pitch goes global on Web

Martin reared back and threw. But as the pitch arrived at about chin level to Hightower, Hill dropped to his knees, as though the ball were going to bounce in the dirt, and ducked his head.

The pitch screamed over Hill's left shoulder and smashed into Scott's umpire face mask.

Hightower didn't see the pitch hit Scott, but he heard it. "It hit him solid," Hightower said. "It wasn't a nick; it was full-on impact."

"I knew something wasn't right when it happened," Cartersville coach Stuart Chester said.

In the stands, Johnny Tucker, the father of a Cartersville coach and himself a high school coach for 30 years, was in shock. To him, and many others, it appeared Hill had intentionally let Scott get hit with the pitch.

"I've never seen something like that in my entire life," he said.

Watching from the bench, Huth said, "everyone's jaws dropped."

Scott removed his mask and walked away from the plate to collect himself.

"It was pretty abrupt shock," Scott said.

Later, Ted Taylor, the Stephens County broadcaster, gave his perspective: The biggest game of the players' lives was going disastrously. On such a stage, teenage boys can "get caught up in the heat and passion" of the moment. He said that Hill, the catcher, is "one of the nicest kids you'd ever want to meet."

Still, he viewed the act as "a monumental blunder."

Scott felt well enough to continue the game, which didn't last much longer.

In nearly any other high school contest, the incident might have been stuck in a quagmire of conflicting interpretations of what had happened.

However, it happened in one of the few high school baseball games that was professionally recorded.

Cartersville had hired Atlanta-based Workhorse Video Productions to film and call the game. A center-field camera captured a clear view of the play.

After several people, including a Cartersville school official, asked Scott Singer, president of the video company and the play-by-play man at the game, about the pitch, he posted a 40-second segment to the Workhorse Web site.

A fan posted that video on the high school baseball blog on ajc.com.

Both Stephens County principal David Friend and Georgia High School Association executive director Ralph Swearngin launched investigations and reviewed the video.

The school apologized, and the GHSA fined the school $1,000 and placed the baseball team on "severe warning status."

Gordon College in Barnesville, which had invited Hill, the catcher, to join its baseball team as a walk-on, rescinded the offer after the coach reviewed the play online.

With access to the footage, local news programs gave the incident air time. Sports blogs weighed in. CNN and USA Today ran stories.

At least two copies were later uploaded onto YouTube, neither by Singer. Said Singer: "It just went out of control after that. It took on its own life."

The fallout of the pitch was apparent this past Thursday, when Ethan Martin was drafted 15th overall by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the major-league baseball draft.

When Dodgers beat writers spoke with Martin via teleconference, they seemed more interested in finding out what had really happened in a high school game five days earlier in a north Georgia town 1,900 miles from Los Angeles than they did in, for instance, Martin's thoughts about playing for the Dodgers.

Umpire talks with lawyers

The attention even reached Scott. Two major- league umpires tracked him down to express support and concern.

The president of the umpiring association that along with the GHSA assigned Scott to the game said his phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from friends and fellow umpires.

Scott, who received all of $80 (including mileage) for his efforts that day, said he has been bothered by neck pains and headaches in the days since. He is considering his legal options.

"My lawyers have got to look at that," he said. "These are legal questions that I don't have an answer to."

Asked what he thought of the play, Scott said: "I think everybody's seen the video, and that says it all."

Said Tucker, the father of a Cartersville assistant coach, "As I told my son, 'Nobody cares about the score of the game anymore. It's all about this pitch.' "

If it was intentional, the motive may never be known.

On the Dodgers teleconference, Ethan Martin said the incident was unintentional: "They didn't find anybody guilty," Martin said.

"It wasn't on purpose, I know that. Them fining us, obviously Georgia High School didn't find anybody at fault for the pitch or whatever, so I think as much media attention as they got, I think they fined us just to appease people. But I mean fining us I think is all right. I mean, we're sorry for getting fined and putting that name on our county and everything."

Martin said the incident hasn't affected his younger brother. "He knew he didn't do anything wrong because it wasn't on purpose," Ethan Martin said. "He's been really calm about it. It really hasn't affected him much."

As it turns out, Hightower, the Cartersville catcher, and Cody Martin, the Stephens County pitcher, will spend the summer playing together on the East Cobb Braves travel baseball team. Hightower and both Martins played on the team last summer. In a game Friday, Cody Martin even pitched to Hightower for an inning.

Said Hightower, "It was a little ironic."

The two talked, but did not bring up the game.

"You want to let him move on," Hightower said of Cody. "If he meant to do it, he probably knows it was a mistake."

— Kurt Aschermann contributed to this article.