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RIP Champ Summers: Gone at 66

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Riptide, Oct 11, 2012.

  1. Liut

    Liut Well-Known Member

    I remember watching the brawl as it happened during high school years. Don't mind admitting I was flabbergasted but it was great entertainment. Watched the Pine Tar game live as well. Don't know which seemed craziest, though this brawl, or series of brawls, seemed to go on and on.

    Champ Summers always struck me as a scrapper. RIP.
     
  2. Riptide

    Riptide Well-Known Member

    Here's a link to a Deadspin look back at that brawl, with a link to an SI recap in the Deadspin story:

    http://deadspin.com/5611309/remembering-the-greatest-basebrawl-of-all-time

    The funny part, related in the SI story, is how Pascual Perez hid behind Bob Horner in the the dugout once the benches cleared.

    http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1122454/1/index.htm
     
  3. old_tony

    old_tony Well-Known Member

    The unexpected humor in responses such as this is one of the things that makes this place so damn golden. Thanks for the morning laugh.
     
  4. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    Bob Horner wasn't the sharpest knife the drawer. He loved kicking ass. Pascual did the right thing to use him for protection.
     
  5. Riptide

    Riptide Well-Known Member

    Pascual did the wrong thing by running away like a little nancy bitch.
     
  6. Steak Snabler

    Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

    Pascual only weighed about 150 pounds.
     
  7. slc10

    slc10 Member

    I remember the fight in Atlanta. Bob Horner came out of the dugout looking like Dusty Rhodes. I know Steve Bedrosian (one of the braves who was in the battle) and his family and his wife remembers it all too well.
     
  8. mpcincal

    mpcincal Well-Known Member

    It might be in the linked story (haven't checked), but I believe Horner was on the DL at the time, and was actually in the broadcast booth to start the game. After the benches emptied the first couple of times, he decided to go down and get into uniform to be there when things flared up again.
     
  9. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    If you need more for next winter, I have a stack of those, too.
     
  10. Riptide

    Riptide Well-Known Member

    True. From the SI story: "During the fight Perez hid in the dugout, protected by teammate Bob Horner, who (with his arm in a cast) had just come down from the press box and put on his uniform to be ready for hostilities."
     
  11. 2underpar

    2underpar Active Member

    I'll see your champ summers and raise you a Camilo Pascual. One in every pack.
     
  12. X-Hack

    X-Hack Well-Known Member

    Met him when I was 11 back in '81. My dad knew someone who was somehow connected to the Tigers organization. The guy arranged for us to go into the clubhouse before a game (or at least a visiting area just off the locker room) and a bunch of Tigers like Richie Hebner, Lynn Jones, Tom Brookens, Dave Tobik and Mick Kelleher came through to meet us (we also met Al Kaline). Champ came in wearing only a towel, which was kind of uncomfortable. But he was a nice enough guy. I can't believe he was 66 -- I wouldn't have put him in his mid-30s at the time, though I do remember he said he had a teenage daughter. I also remember him having a pretty big part in another huge brawl when the Tigers were in Chicago in '81. Al Cowens had some kind of vendetta against Ed Farmer stemming from when Al was in Seattle and Ed was in Texas. If I remember right, Farmer walked Cowens his first time up and Cowens took a detour to the mound, went after Farmer and the benches cleared and fists were flying. Summer got some good ones in.

    Edit: messed up some details. Brawl was in '80, stemming from a Farmer beanball that broke Cowens's jaw a couple years earlier when Cowens was playing for KC. And he charged the mound on a groundout, not a walk.
     
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