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Baseball bench-clearing scrums are a joke

Have you ever seen anything more ridiculous than a bench-clearing "brawl" in baseball?

Red Sox starter Julian Tavarez just hit the Angels' Orlando Cabrera, barely grazing him across the letters. He didn't like it too much, so he started to take a few steps towards the mound and was clearly upset.

Both benches cleared and, my favorite, the pitchers in the bullpen run all the way in to join the scrum on the diamond. If anything, don't you think they would get into it in the outfield instead of running all the way in?

To stop such silly behavior, and to have baseball players stop thinking they're hockey players, here's a simple solution to stop such events in baseball.

If a pitcher hits a batter and then decides to charge the mound, let them battle it out. If anyone leaves their position, including the catcher, or leaves the dugout and bullpen then it's an automatic suspension.

This way the pitcher knows he'll have to protect himself if he decides to intentionally hit a batter. And, if the dugouts do empty, then please make it worth it -- old-school hockey.

I can picture it now. Francona walking through the clubhouse one day and he spots Dustin Pedroia putting on the foil.

Posted by Joe McDonald  at 2:49 PM | Permalink

Comments

Stephen Begin | August 20, 2007 7:52 AM link