Week of brawls in baseball

When you imaging baseball, you probably see a blue sky, kids in the stands, a hot dog in your hand and the crack of the bats sounding in your ears. Laughing and joy is the usual feeling. We used to practice a form of mini-meditation to clear our minds before batting because you are less effective when you are emotional. Baseball isn’t football, you don’t play angry. But someone seems to have forgotten to pass that message on to the next generation.

On Thursday, the game between the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs and Binghamton Rumble Ponies was interrupted by a bench-clearing brawl.

In the bottom of the third inning, Mets-affiliated Sea Dogs first baseman Tyreque Reed was hit in the hand by a pitch from Red Sox-affiliated Rumble Ponies pitcher Marcel Renteria. Halfway down the first base line, Reed turned to Renteria and punched him in the face. It appears that Renteria may have been saying something before being hit. The dugouts cleared and when Renteria recovered from the punch, he attacked a completely different player.

It was over pretty quickly but the pitcher stayed on the ground and needed to be attended by the medical staff. He was replaced on the mound and Reed was ejected from the game. The Sea Dogs went on to win the game 12-5.

This fight is the second one this week to have taken social media by storm. The other is even more wild. In a junior college matchup between Weatherford College and North Central Texas College, a pitcher was suspended for tackling a base runner.

North Central’s Josh Phillips had taken a ball deep for a home run and decided that he would taunt opposing pitcher Owen Woodward all the way around the base path. By the time Phillips made it to third, Woodward decided that he had heard enough and laid a linebacker-style tackle on Phillips.

Several players were suspended following the ensuing brawl, and both teams were ordered to forfeit the game and North Central were forced to forfeit the following two games because their players in suspension left them unable to field a team. On Saturday, the two teams face each other again.

Weatherford coach Jeff Lightfoot expressed his dismay after the game. “We do not condone this type of behavior. We have worked hard to build a program with the highest of standards. We are completely embarrassed by this incident, and we apologize to North Central Texas College and the fans of Weatherford College baseball. This type of behavior cannot be tolerated.”

Who says baseball is boring? Shocking, sad, funny, but never boring.