Favorite Baseball Fights

[Double J]

This Blue Jays fan remembers George Bell charging the Red Sox' Bruce Kison in 1985 and getting him with a drop kick to the stomach.

 

[Bob Cook]

Minor league division: Izzy Alcantara teaches kids that if you want a clear shot at the pitcher, take out the catcher first.

 

[Sea Bass]

And didn't Torii Hunter once get hit by a pitch and then fling the ball back at the pitcher?

I think Pedro Guerrero did that too in the late 80's. I remember it was a Latin home run hitter from that era anyway.

EDIT - I just checked and Guerrero threw his bat at a pitcher, not a ball. The pitcher was David Cone. Maybe Cone jerked off in front of Guerrero's mother or something, I don't know.

 

[ColdCat]

World edition: Mexico vs. Canada at the WBC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAtGT-fFvr0
skip to about the 2:10 mark if you don't want to see the lead-up to it (Canada bunting for a single with a 9-3 lead because run differential was a tiebreaker.

College edition: Purdue-IU in the Bee-One-Gee tourney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G7kfOuyBTU

 

[DanOregon]

Always love the locker-room fights where players seem more concerned about a camera filming it, than the teammates or coaches duking it out.

 

[SoCalDude]

I covered this game, Dodgers at Pirates. Below is NOT my story, but somebody else posted it last time this topic came around on SJ.
I was walking in the concourse a level below the press box. The fans started yelling and, in the small slice of the field I could see from behind the stands, the relief pitchers were all sprinting toward the infield. I headed for the escalator to go back up to the press box when I saw Pittsburgh beat guy Charley Feeney (RIP), running DOWN the UP escalator. I followed him to a stairway and we were quickly down at the clubhouse level where all the players were crammed in.
Best quote of the day came from Rick Monday: "Rick Sutcliffe and Dave Parker were nose to nose right in the middle. It looked like a center jump at a basketball game."


http://www.hardballtimes.com/tht-live/30th-anniversary-out-of-sight-dodgers-pirates-fight-8-25-11/

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I remember a Royals-Indians one when Bo Jackson was on the team where he just punched the **** out of (I think...) Pat Tabler. He looked like he had been hit by Mike Tyson he went down so fast.

Ventura-Ryan is an obvious favorite as well.

 

[DeskMonkey1]

Not quite a fight, but George Brett trying to go after Tim McClelland was an all-timer.

This.

From a visual standpoint, this thread begins and ends with George Brett

 

[Mizzougrad96]

Not quite a fight, but George Brett trying to go after Tim McClelland was an all-timer.

This.

From a visual standpoint, this thread begins and ends with George Brett

Best meltdown? Absolutely. Not really a fight though...

 

[Spartan Squad]

I was browsing Youtube after reading this thread and came across this one from 1993. Mike Mussina plunks Bill Haselman and sparks a fight that goes on for a while. The kicker was Lou Piniella going ape at the very end.

http://youtu.be/eYTQE8wUuvw

 

[Sea Bass]

I was browsing Youtube after reading this thread and came across this one from 1993. Mike Mussina plunks Bill Haselman and sparks a fight that goes on for a while. The kicker was Lou Piniella going ape at the very end.

http://youtu.be/eYTQE8wUuvw

"It's Haselmania!!!" said legendary Toronto TV sportscaster Jim Tatti as highlights of that brawl ran on the 11:30 sports show that night.

 

[da man]

I was browsing Youtube after reading this thread and came across this one from 1993. Mike Mussina plunks Bill Haselman and sparks a fight that goes on for a while. The kicker was Lou Piniella going ape at the very end.

http://youtu.be/eYTQE8wUuvw

That's unpossible! Mr. Piniella was always such a calm, rational type.

 

[Spartan Squad]

I was browsing Youtube after reading this thread and came across this one from 1993. Mike Mussina plunks Bill Haselman and sparks a fight that goes on for a while. The kicker was Lou Piniella going ape at the very end.

http://youtu.be/eYTQE8wUuvw

That's unpossible! Mr. Piniella was always such a calm, rational type.

I don't know what got into him that day. He so rarely got angry and kicked things.

 

[mateen]

Wasn't the '93 Mariners-Orioles brawl the one in which Cal Ripken hurt his knee, almost causing him to miss a game and end his streak?

You watch some of these things, with large, athletic men throwing punches and jumping on each other, and it's a wonder there aren't more serious injuries. Bill Lee's shoulder injury from the Yankee-Red Sox brawl is the only serious one that comes to mind.

 

[Spartan Squad]

Wasn't the '93 Mariners-Orioles brawl the one in which Cal Ripken hurt his knee, almost causing him to miss a game and end his streak?

You watch some of these things, with large, athletic men throwing punches and jumping on each other, and it's a wonder there aren't more serious injuries. Bill Lee's shoulder injury from the Yankee-Red Sox brawl is the only serious one that comes to mind.

Yeah that was the game. Also in that one, Chris Bosio rebroke his collar bone after having been on the DL earlier in the season for a similar problem.

 

[Riptide]

You watch some of these things, with large, athletic men throwing punches and jumping on each other, and it's a wonder there aren't more serious injuries. Bill Lee's shoulder injury from the Yankee-Red Sox brawl is the only serious one that comes to mind.

You'd also think someone could land a real punch or two sometime.

Christ, no wonder half the league is batting .243. They can't hit anything.

 

[Batman]

Phillies-Braves in 1991, the Otis Nixon War, was pretty entertaining.
A Phillies pitcher named Wally Ritchie hit Nixon on Dale Murphy night in Atlanta, and Nixon charged the mound. Nixon threw a kick as he got there that cut up Ritchie's jersey and his stomach (Nixon went in spikes up), got in some good punches, and put Ritchie on the DL because of his injuries.

Here's the Philadelphia Inquirer game story from the first incident, with a heartwarming quote from Bobby Cox: http://articles.philly.com/1991-06-05/sports/25788300_1_wally-ritchie-phils-otis-nixon

But Braves manager Bobby Cox said, "All I know is, Otis beat the living . . . out of him. It made me happy."

And poor-quality VHS video of the fight:


A couple of weeks later in Philadelphia, Roger McDowell threw at Nixon's head and was ejected. Although there wasn't another fight, McDowell almost charged out of the dugout when Nixon started jawing at him from first base. It did cause more retaliation, though, when Tom Glavine threw at Dale Murphy (who was with the Phillies by then) in the bottom of the ninth inning. Glavine threw four change-ups, all inside. The last one hit Murphy and inspired this gem from home plate umpire Bob Davidson.

"The reason Glavine got four pitches was because Dale Murphy was hitting," Davidson said. "You don't throw at a crucifix. If it had been anyone else up there but him . . .
"Besides, the pitches were changeups, they weren't exactly thrown hard."

http://articles.philly.com/1991-06-20/sports/25788895_1_braves-outfielder-otis-nixon-jeff-blauser-braves-starter-tom-glavine

As an epilogue, I remember the Phillies hung Ritchie's shredded jersey from the first incident in the clubhouse as a rallying point. Didn't help them much -- they finished 78-84 -- but it was sort of funny.

 

[mpcincal]

I was browsing Youtube after reading this thread and came across this one from 1993. Mike Mussina plunks Bill Haselman and sparks a fight that goes on for a while. The kicker was Lou Piniella going ape at the very end.

http://youtu.be/eYTQE8wUuvw

Didn't have time to watch all the way through, but wasn't that the brawl in which Ripken got his leg tweaked and almost had to end the streak?

 

[Colton]

Stumbled across this one -- Red Sox at Yankees, from 1967 -- paging through some the the links, here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5H6oo1O0Q0

 

[Steak Snabler]

There was also that great Braves-Padres fight in the 1980s that started when Pascual Perez kept plunking guys. The best part was when Bob Horner, who was out with one of his many wrist injuries, came out of the dugout to stop Champ Summers from going after Perez. Horner had come down from the press box when everyone started throwing at everyone else just in case there was trouble.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any photos of that one through Google.

Damn, I'd forgotten how good that one was. Let's go to the video...

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

Let's tally the numbers: three hit batsmen and the three failed attempts by the Padres to hit Perez led to the benches clearing in the second, fifth, eighth, and nine innings. Thirteen players and both managers—yes, even the Braves' saintly manager, Joe Torre—were ejected. Five fans who joined the fun were arrested. Eleven players and both managers were fined. Four players received suspensions. Torre was suspended for three games. Padres manager **** Williams was fined $10,000 and given a 10-day suspension. It all resulted in an extremely coy box score and play-by-play description.

I remember watching that one live. I was too young to enjoy it (and Skip Caray's call), unfortunately.

Me too. I don't recall specifics of the telecast other than Caray eventually seemed a little exasperated. Having stated that, he had some fun with it as well.

I have nothing to add except that it happened on my 11th birthday, which was awesome.

There was a notable Red Sox-Tigers brawl in the early 90s of which I don't remember much other than the catcher (Gedman maybe?) saying afterward that trying to stop Cecil Fielder from charging the mound was "like trying to tackle a buffalo."