Tuesday night, June 11th, provided us with an old school baseball brawl. Benches cleared in Los Angeles in a game between the hometown Dodgers and rival Diamondbacks. It took two days for Major League Baseball to look through the tape and decide what the penalties should be. Today is Friday June 14th and we finally have some decisions.
Tuesday's night game was humming along until the sixth inning when Diamondback pitcher, and former Yankee, Ian Kennedy threw at the face of Dodger phenom Yasiel Puig. Not at his head, literally at his face. Puig took first base without any question. In the next half inning Zack Greinke, who was involved with a benches clearing brawl earlier in the year, threw several pitches at and behind Diamondbacks catcher Miguel Montero. He finally tagged Montero in the back and the benches cleared. No punches were thrown as the umpires controlled the extracurricular activity. The bottom half of the seventh arrived and Dodger manager Don Mattingly left Zack Greinke in to bat. Ian Kennedy then took it upon himself to throw directly at Greinke's head, hitting him in his front shoulder, inches away from his face. From this point on Mortal Kombat ensued. Benches cleared as Kennedy and Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson were immediately ejected but the fracas on the field ensued. Managers Don Mattingly and Kirk Gibson went after each other, Dodgers hitting coach Mark McGuire went after Matt Williams in an old school late 80's-early 90's "muscle filled" brawl. Punches were thrown, players were ejected and today the suspensions were handed down.
The suspensions are as follows: Ian Kennedy- 10 games, Eric Hinske-5 games, J.P. Howell and Skip Schumaker-2 games, Ronald Belisario-1 game, and that’s just the players. Mark McGuire gets a two game suspension while Don Mattingly and Kirk Gibson get a game each. All of the player’s suspensions are subject to appeal, the managers are not. In addition to the suspensions, four players were fined an undisclosed amount. Those players were: Zack Greinke, Yasiel Puig, Miguel Montero and Gerardo Parra.
Here is where we run into a HUGE problem. Joe Torre and the MLB discipline committee had a chance to lay down the hammer and set a precedent and they caved to the MLB Union once again. Ian Kennedy's suspension of ten days is the longest in the history of any suspension handed out ever. The problem is that Kennedy only pitches every five days, which means it's really only a two game suspension. In all of this Kennedy threw at two players heads, which is not only career threatening, but life threatening as well. If Joe Torre really wanted to set a precedent, he would have suspended Kennedy 20 games, with an appeal. The union would have appealed and gotten the ten games, but it's more important to show that you're not messing around with pitches thrown at people’s faces. This rant does not just dwindle down to Kennedy because Greinke was out of line as well. Greinke threw three pitches that ended up behind and over the head of Montero. As a pitcher who is going for retaliation, you get one try. If you do not hit the guy on that first try, you don’t get another. Greinke took it upon himself to take those shots on the opposing team’s catcher. Let me refresh your memory for a minute. Earlier this year Greinke hit Padres outfielder Carlos Quentin on the front shoulder and Quentin took exception to it and charged the mound. Instead of backing down Greinke waved Quentin on like he was a WWE wrestler and ended up with a broken collar bone and missed eight weeks of the season. I'm in no way saying that Greinke added fuel to this fire of a brawl, but he sure as hell laid some kindling.
After all is said and done five players and three coaches get suspended and twelve get fined. If it were up to me heavier suspensions would have been handed down to each pitcher. That way we can deter them from throwing at guys heads in the future. If you want to throw at a guy, he has a nice round, ten-inch place right below his back called a butt. Hit him there and go on with the game. Fighting in baseball is stupid and boring. Leave it to hockey fellas and our game will survive!
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