The brawls are getting old.
Baseball and hockey are not the same sport. Sorry, Major League Baseball please sit down and play your game. The season is 44 days in, and May is just 18 days in. However, in just 18 days, there have been three bench clearing brawls on fields across the country. Bench clearings aren’t new; they go way back to the beginning of baseball. Â Testosterone is flying high in professional sports, but really guys, have a little class. It’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt, and that punch that Jose Bautista took to the face probably didn’t feel very good.
Sure, a little argument between the manager and the umpire is exciting, particularly when the manager gets ejected, but let’s go through the timeline for the month so far:
- May 6: Benches clear in Chicago during a White Sox – Twins game after White Sox hitter Jose Abreu gets drilled by Twins pitcher Trevor May. The weird thing is, no punches were thrown. Why bother clearing the bench? Sox manager Robin Ventura was ejected by crew chief Bill Miller for arguing intent on the pitch to Abreu.
- May 15: Benches clear in Texas during a Rangers – Blue Jays game after Blue Jays’ Jose Bautista slid low in an attempt to break up a double play. Rougned Odor took offense after the bad blood these two teams have for one another after last year’s playoffs, and so begins the brawl in which Bautista takes one to the face. Toronto reliever Jesse Chavez began a second brawl after hitting Rangers hitter Prince Fielder with a pitch.
- May 17: Benches clear in San Diego in a Padres – Giants game after Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner stares down Wil Myers upon striking him out. I’m a biased Giants fan, and if you ask me, Myers can get over himself. Nevertheless, benches cleared, but like the brawl in Chicago, no punches were thrown.
At the very least, two out of the three brawls were hardly “brawls”, but they still happened. Officials spend their time arguing with each other about who was on the right side or the wrong side, and that’s not what needs to be discussed. These brawls can be avoided, and they should be. Â These brawls can lead to more serious injury, and a suspension is a perfectly justifiable punishment. The NBA does it: leave the bench with the intent to fight? Suspended. It’s time for the MLB to catch up. Our players aren’t wearing pads like it’s hockey, or football for that matter. Fines do nothing in punishment; these players make millions. Couple thousand dollars? No big deal. If the MLB brought these rules into the game, we’d certainly shorten the time of the game, as these brawls last about as much time as call reviews, and everybody wants shorter baseball games, right?
Now we’re just waiting to see what happens next time the Rangers play the Blue Jays, because I’m sure Rougned Odor is not happy about his eight game suspension compared to Jose Bautista’s one game suspension, despite the fact that Odor punched Bautista, and not the other way around. Really though, this nonsense of back and forth cannot keep going on. Baseball isn’t hockey. Leave the brawls to the ice.
