Tag Archives: brawl

Daily Distractions: Taking a moment to appreciate The Brawl; nicknaming Yasiel Puig.

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Mark McGwire, Kirk Gibson

Mark McGwire and Kirk Gibson aren’t talking about the 1988 World Series in this photo, but isn’t it fun to imagine they are? (Associated Press photo)

Like Yasiel Puig’s arrival last week, The Brawl has been a gift to the media that keeps on giving.

Accuse us of glorifying violence, I don’t care. It was a rare occasion and one that’s been examined from a lot of angles. Searching for the words in the moment, some of us in the media not typically prone to hyperbole rose to the level of hyperbole (before remembering that, no, the 1984 Braves-Padres brawl was much worse, even when it’s set to the “Benny Hill” theme song).

Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com hopes The Brawl inspires baseball’s rulemakers to forbid players from leaving the benches and bullpens during a fracas. Still others couldn’t get over the number of coaches involved who filled out our baseball card collections in the 1980s. One piece exploring this topic concludes with God admonishing Ryne Sandberg. The gift that keeps on giving.

And oh, the photos.

Take a moment to appreciate it all before the MLB-induced discipline squashes the moment today.

Some bullet points for a Thursday morning:
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No suspensions today, but some hindsight to be found among Dodgers, Diamondbacks.

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Mark McGwire brawl

Dodgers hitting coach Mark McGwire, right, confronted Arizona Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson, left, in yesterday’s brawl. (Getty Images)

Any fines and suspensions that Major League Baseball plans to levy on the participants in Tuesday’s brawl between the Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks will have to wait until tomorrow.

That doesn’t mean that players and coaches on both sides weren’t anticipating it Wednesday.
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Daily Distractions: What kind of supplemental discipline can the Dodgers expect?

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Yasiel Puig

Yasiel Puig is restrained during the benches-clearing brawl in the seventh inning of Tuesday’s game between the Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks. (Getty Images)

The Dodgers and Diamondbacks will decide if any further action is needed tonight, 24 hours after Tuesday’s massive brawl.

So will Major League Baseball.

A spokesperson for the league said that Joe Garagiola Jr., MLB’s senior vice president of standards and on-field operations, will review video of the incident to determine if fines or suspensions are warranted. Even though six participants — Kirk Gibson, Ian Kennedy, Turner Ward, Mark McGwire, Yasiel Puig and Ronald Belisario — were ejected, others could face supplemental discipline.

The crew chief, first-base umpire Brian Gorman, told pool reporter Ken Rosenthal that Puig and McGwire were ejected for being instigators, while Belisario was “out of control.”

Gibson and Kennedy were automatically ejected and precedent holds that both could be suspended. Then-Dodgers manager Joe Torre and pitcher Clayton Kershaw were suspended in July 2010 for throwing at Aaron Rowand of the San Francisco Giants. Torre was suspended one game, Kershaw five.

Some of the 15 Dodgers players on the disabled list went on the field, including Chris Capuano and Josh Beckett. That hasn’t historically resulted in suspensions, though Garagiola may choose to fine the two pitchers.

Coincidentally, Garagiola was the Diamondbacks’ first general manager, from 1997-2005.

Some more bullet points that didn’t make my game story last night:
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Why the Dodgers-Diamondbacks feud might not be over.

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Don Mattingly Alan Trammell

Dodgers manager Don Mattingly tackles Arizona Diamondbacks bench coach Alan Trammell to the ground during Tuesday’s seventh-inning brawl. (Getty Images)

If you haven’t seen the brawl between the Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks, the most thorough video is up on MLB.com.

As you can see, a number of Dodgers players and coaches look upset. Angry, even. Enraged, boiling mad, fuming …

A few hours after the game the adrenaline had died down but the sentiment had not. What were the Dodgers so upset about?
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Dodgers pitcher Zack Greinke is trying to learn from his mistakes — three of them, to be exact.

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Zack Greinke Carlos Quentin

Dodgers pitcher Zack Greinke said he’s watched replays of last Thurdsay’s brawl in San Diego. (Associated Press)

Say this much for Dodgers pitcher Zack Greinke: He’s trying to learn from his mistakes.

Mistake one: October 11, 2011. On the eve of the National League Championship Series between Greinke’s Brewers and the St. Louis Cardinals, Greinke was asked about Cardinals right-hander Chris Carpenter.

“They think his presence, his attitude out there sometimes is like a phony attitude,” Greinke told reporters in Milwaukee. “And then he yells at people. He just stares people down and stuff. And most pitchers just don’t do that. And when guys do, I guess some hitters get mad. Some hitters do it to pitchers. But when you do that some people will get mad.

“There’s other pitchers in the league that do it, but, I don’t know,” Greinke said, “a lot of guys on our team don’t like Carpenter.”

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MLB suspends Padres’ Carlos Quentin eight games, Dodgers’ Jerry Hairston Jr. one; both appeal.

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Carlos Quentin has been suspended eight games, and Jerry Hairston Jr. one, for their roles in Thursday’s benches-clearing brawl in San Diego.

Both players have appealed their suspensions and will continue to play until the league issues its decision on the appeal. That means that Hairston and Quentin could be in the lineup Monday, when the Dodgers host the Padres at Dodger Stadium.

Quentin and Hairston were both fined an undisclosed amount.

Matt Kemp and Zack Greinke avoided supplemental discipline for their roles in the melee. Both were ejected, along with Hairston and Quentin, who began the brawl by charging Greinke after being hit by a pitch in the sixth inning. (Video here).

Dodgers pitcher Zack Greinke fractures clavicle in brawl with San Diego Padres.

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When the Dodgers retained a surplus of starting pitchers in anticipation that their top five would not make every start this season, they could not have imagined a scenario like the one that unfolded Thursday night.

Zack Greinke left his start against the San Diego Padres after fracturing his left clavicle in the midst of a benches-clearing brawl that started when the Padres’ Carlos Quentin charged the mound after being hit by a Greinke pitch in the sixth inning.

Here’s the video of the brawl from tonight’s broadcast:

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Luis Cruz on his role in WBC brawl: “I lost it.”

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Luis Cruz said Monday that he “lost it.” Over and over and over again.

But what, exactly, did he lose when he induced a brawl in the WBC game between Canada and Mexico on Saturday? Did he lose the formula for “Team Quality Balance”? Here it is again:

(RS/IPO)-(RA/IPD)=TQB

To fit that formula on the back of his hand, Cruz and the rest of the participants in the World Baseball Classic would have to write fairly small. It’s an important formula, the one that determines which of three teams tied with identical records, and no head-to-head tie-breaking games, advances out of pool play into the second round of the tournament.

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