Rambling On About My Glory Days: Pre-game Fireworks

Most major league ball players have a story or two about bench clearing brawls when they were involved. All of them that I recall were pretty sedate where there was a lot of yelling and finger pointing, but no real blows were thrown. My most memorable brawl happened in the minor leagues and did not even involve the opposing team. However, it did end with someone being carted off in an ambulance. Here is how it went down.

The “dog days” of the season were upon us. During the previous night’s game, there was quite a bit of back and forth with our team and the umpires, so tensions were a little testy going into the game. Our team took the field like any other game, which included yours truly out at second base. Once there, I noticed our starting pitcher and the umpire were already yelling at each other. Apparently and according to the umpire, our starting pitcher directed a gesture (see my last post for the gesture) towards the umpire as our pitcher was taking the field. The umpire proceeded to throw our pitcher out of the game before he even reached the mound.

OK - everyone expected some yelling would ensue, our team would warm up another pitcher and the game would begin a little late. Our ejected pitcher had other plans. From the top of the pitching mound, he proclaimed for all to hear, “I am not leaving this field till I kick his _ _ _,” as he pointed to the umpire. Of course, that would be the end of it and our coaches would talk our pitcher into calming down and coming to his senses. Once again a proclamation from the hill, “I have had my fun in the game and I don’t care anymore, I am not leaving till I kick his _ _ _.” Now things were starting to get interesting.

Suddenly, our pitcher breaks at full speed for the umpire, with everyone on our team chasing after him. Running full speed till a foot before reaching the umpire, the player stops on a dime. Unfortunately, all of us following him could not stop and knocked the pitcher into the umpire and to the ground. At this point our pitcher really lost it and tried to get up. It took at least five of us to hold him down and away from the umpire until he calmed down enough to allow him up. One of the guys working on keeping the player down was our manager. Upon getting up after the wrestling match, our manager begins to have trouble breathing while holding his heart area. This is when the ambulance was summoned and necessary to take our manager to the hospital. Fortunately, our suspicions of a heart attack were unfounded as he suffered a couple of broken ribs.

Finally, calm was restored. The thing that stands out in my mind all these years was seeing the opposing team sitting outside their dugout, laughing and enjoying the heck out of the show they just saw.

Former major leaguer Jack Perconte is the author of The Making of a Hitter ( http://jackperconte.com ) and has a baseball instruction site that can be found at www.baseballcoachingtips.net . He has recently published his second book Raising an Athlete – How to Instill Confidence, Build Skills and Inspire a Love of Sport