Fight? What fight?

This just goes to show you that in the heat of battle anything can happen. The coaches should take responsibility for not having the players disciplined enough to not take part in such a fiasco especially because of the magnitude of the contest and importance of this game. It's too bad many high school seniors careers had to end like this. Unfortunate, very unfortunate.

Reginald Miller, Executive Producer/Host
"A Local Sports Show"
Adelphia Communications
Glendora, CA 91740

Don't blame the umps. They rule on the events. Blame the players, coaches and fans who participated in that fiasco.

I can't stand when critics say that "officials let the game get away"...no way. People need to be held accountable for their own actions. Most of those players are soon-to-be high school graduates, headed into adulthood. Let's not tell them that they can blame the umps for allowing them to fight and have their playoff game forfeited.

Heck, we can't even blame sportswriters like Aram for saying how cool it is to see a brawl... Unfortunately, these players lost a chance to advance within the playoffs. Hopefully, they realize that if they had excercised self-control things would have worked out differently. Let's not dillute the lesson here.

Thanks SB great explanation and information coming from a HS Ump. As far as the other two umpires, they were pretty much useless. The homeplate ump was having to instruct his crew on where to stand when runners were on the bases, he was overriding calls made by his crew not because either coach was contesting their calls but because he had a "better eye" for the play. So no wonder they did not come to aide in any of this. I have seen umps very vocal and in control of their field instantly involved in many plays however not in this game. Sad to say but for being such a important game not having "top notch" HS Umps was a shame. Again, I believe all could have been avoided by having "Competent Umps". Oh well life goes on.

First of all, I am a HS umpire and when heard of this situation, I was appalled that this would happen in today's HS game.

What many fail to add in these postings is that the Hisperia players and coaches violated another NFHS (National Federation of High School Associations: those are actually the rules in which CIF uses in most sports including baseball) is that any player leaving his position or the bench (dugout) or bullpen area is also to be ejected.

Once the coach left the dugout, his players followed suit, according to several reports in which I have read. Had the coaches for Hisperia worked on keeping their own players where they were supposed to be, rather than adding fuel to thew fire, they would have advanced to the next round.

I understand that their coach is in his first year and is young, so I am sure he will learn a valuable lesson on high school sports decorum, similarly to what Sean McCorry has learned from last season's situation at Arcadia.

For what it is worth, NFHS and CIF rules are pretty consistant in all sports regarding altercations about players leaving the bench or their position to join in any altercation.

To clear things up on the "avoid contact" rule in NFHS rules, a player must avoid contact with a catcher with the ball or in the act of fielding a ball. Most methods to avoid contact is to slide, but veering or "giving himself up" are other common methods. There may be collisions that would not violate this rule because the position of the ball and fielder may not give the runner ample time to adjust. If a runner fails to avoid contact, the ball is dead and he would be delcared out for interference and toehr runner return to the last base they held, unless such contact prevented a further play and an additional out may be called.

That brings us up to "malicious contact" which results in the ejection of the offender and the previous penalties would apply. Contact with a field does not always result in an ejection, but malicious contact would result in an ejection.

These intrepretaions are also used in most youth ball leagues now as well.

Last comment, since I was not working that game, I do not know what exactly happened, but whenever I get a crash/slide situation at homeplate, I do try to get between them before anything could happen. However, things do happen very quickly and getting between the players may not be possible. Was their something the base umpires (there are two for these games) could have done to stop the spread? I am not sure, but I would expect my crew to be able to attempt to keep players in their dugouts/positions.

I hope this clears things up and adds another perspective from someone who actually is on the field and has seen many of these situations.

Well said playoff game, very intense. No excuse for the poor decision the sp player made however, he should have been tossed. However, having been at the game the umpire had absolutly no control of his field. Had he motioned or raised his voice and thrown out the runner as well as possibly the cather for retailiating then it would of ended and both players out... but that didn't happen. Runner collides with catcher, catcher retaliates, pitcher runs in and benches clear thats it.........so out of control and so sad for the senior boys who will never know how far they could have advanced. Everyone is responsible for their own actions and the blame can't be placed any where, pros, tv etc.

If they don't slide and there is no collision, generally the ump will not toss the player. No harm, no foul.

Unfair to tarnish SP as a cheap shot prone program. Playoffs are intense, but the players should have learned long before that you can't lay the catcher out. Sometimes, though, having coached hundreds of games, the catcher is waiting for the throw and at the last minute moves to block the plate(without the ball), making it too late for the runner to slide, having thought he'd make it in standing up. In the SP situation, it was an infield grounder, and there is no excuse in that instance.

I just read that Monrovia's second baseman was thrown out at the plate in the semifinal game. He did not slide, therefore he was tossed out of the game and will not be allowed to play in the finals this Friday.

Has anybody heard whether or not it was a collision at the plate or simply not sliding? That is a harsh penalty.

Saying St Paul is a bunch of dirt balss is insane, I played at sphs and was never etold to do anything like that.

I guess as a 30-year-old quasi adult I am supposed to be repulsed by this. I don't know why, but part of me finds it cool. And it's not for anything other than the fact that fights/throwing at people/retaliation/ejections are a part of baseball. These things happen in this sport. At the high school level, we have to sit here and say how awful it was. It doesn't happen too often in high school baseball. This was, however, a playoff game and the season was on the line. It's easy to see that it was a tense situation.
I really want to know how many people saw the Cubs/ChiSox brawl and thought "how disgusting."

St. Paul has a history of this type of actions. Dirtballs then, dirtballs now, dirtballs forever.

The catcher was wrong to come up swinging, but bowling over a catcher at the plate has been illegal from little league/PONY and high school since day one. Where was the kid's head? Plus, he was going for home on a ground ball to third, late in the game when behind- a definite brain fart by the runner. They (SP)should be disqualified just for stupid baseball.

Feel sorry for the kids who were not centrally involved. Think they'll learn a lesson from this?

Hypocrisy is alive and well... Do as I say not as I do.

The officials were left no choice but to handle it the way they did. If they hadn't you would see a bench clearing brawl at every high school event from now on. Hey, If it gets you a win why not?

Why give Woodcrest Christian a free trip to the semis? Is it too unfeasible to have the losers of the previous round flip a coin to determine a team to play Woodcrest in the quarterfinals? I thought that when teams are disqualified, then the teams that finished behind them get advanced.

OK, my Michael Barrett comments were typed in sarcasm, but if you want to take them serious, then do it.

What's funny to me about this situation is that I watched the ChiSox/Cubs brawl about 100 times on Saturday and my friends and I loved it everytime. We thought it was awesome. We didn't sit there and say "This is so awful. Oh what an embarrassment."
People called me all day and said "Did you see that? It was awesome!" And I agreed and called people and said the very same thing.

Yet when it comes to the high schools, a bench-clearing brawl after a play at the plate, is taken as disgusting by the same masses that enjoyed seeing it from MLBers on Saturday.

Hypocrisy anyone?

This is why I love FOOTBALL so much. Look how physical it is. Look how often there are borderline late hits that players shrug off, knowing they can make a big play the next time and point to the scoreboard. I'm sure this collision at the plate was a love tap compared to a DE crashing the blind side of a QB. There are rarely any on-field fights in football, much less these bench clearing "brawls."

That being said, these players and coaches need to control themselves. Why do the benches clear anyway? A guy runs into the catcher, let the catcher scrap for himself. Why do people always have to jump in? Things only escalate. I can't even beleive that fans ran onto the field as well.

I have to go with The Town on this one.

As an assistant in the section I must say that their was no other alternative for Rob Wigod,Assistant Commissioner in charge of Baseball, and Jim Staunton to go. The language of the rule was explictly clear.As for the fight between the White Sox and Cubs having something to do with this: I'm sorry but the previous poster is right, people in our society have serious problems in taking responsibility for their actions. The players probably saw this incident in Chicago but ultimately THEY decided to begin the brawl and leave their dugouts. Anybody have an idea as to who will win between Monrovia and Nordhoff? Any info would be appreciated.

Lookout now, I upset the conservatives. Please don't tell Bill O'Reilly on me.

Isn't there a rule that states a runner must do what he can to avoid contact? And you can't blame big leaguers for these coaches who have lousy control over their players. I have seen this from st. paul before. They probably deserve what they get but i don't know if Hesperia deserves it.

Please, we are talking about reality right? Yeah...uh....since when did people stop taking responsibility for their own actions?? You can't blame Michael Barret for that! If you're gonna lay blame....let's blame Barry Bonds....surely it was the roids....I mean....blame George Bush, it's all his fault....gas prices.....Pete Rose....gambling....Osama Bin Laden...Damn brain wash....the Carolina Panther Cheerleaders.....scandalous!! You know, I did see an episode of CSI Miami last week..it was pretty violent...it coulda triggered this, yeah...I think it did! So, I think it was David Caruso's fault...I will call him and demand an apology!

Thank you Aram, and if you don't mind, I will make my own comment on my own blog.
When I read about how this stemmed from a collision at the plate, I immediately thought of the ChiSox/Cubs brawl last weekend when Cubs catcgher Michael Barrett threw a punch at AJ Pierzynski after a collision. Like I always say, prep sports are a microcosm of the sports world. Kids see a brawl after a hard play at the plate in the majors, and boom, we get a brawl after a hard play at the plate in a high school game.

Thanks Michael Barrett, you ruined CIF playoffs for two high school teams. Hope you're proud of yourself.