Baseball brawls are a bit of a guilty pleasure for all of us. Yeah, there’s always the chance that you could see someone get seriously hurt during one of these donnybrooks and you could also argue that the fights put a stain upon the game and set a bad example for any kids who might be watching. With that being said, sometimes you just want to be privy to seeing two guys throw punches (and likely miss) at each other while on a baseball diamond and it’s fun to observe and talk about.
The Reds and Cubs had an incredibly silly shoving match
Sunday’s Say Hey, Baseball takes a look at a lame skirmish that took place on Saturday afternoon.
Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images
Unfortunately, that’s not what we got in Cincinnati when tempers reached a bit of a boiling point between the Cubs and Reds. Instead, we got the lamer sibling of the baseball brawl, which is the baseball shove-fest where nothing but exchanges of shoves and various obscenities take place. The reasoning behind this particular skirmish was silly as well — Javy Baez took offense to Amir Garrett loudly expressing how happy he was with striking out Baez, so they both confronted each other and that led to the benches clearing and the red team yelling at the blue team for a bit.
No punches were thrown, nobody was thrown out and the game proceeded normally. In fact, it had an interesting ending as the Reds ended up winning via walk-off walk in the 11th inning. The Cubs and Baez got the best form of revenge in the form of a 10-0 blowout victory in the second game of the Saturday doubleheader and that’s what makes the brawl-that-wasn’t a bit of a bummer.
Instead of having a moment that could have been remembered, promoted by MLB and then subsequently shamed by MLB once they handed out fines and suspensions, this skirmish felt like more of a speed bump in the road towards completing the doubleheader than anything else. Your mileage may vary depending on how you feel about brawls in baseball but at first glance, this entire situation seems like much ado about nothing. They can’t all be pugilistic classics!
- If you do want to read about an actual pugilistic classic in baseball history (and a bit of a warning for the future), then Grant Brisbee has you covered with this analysis of that time when the ‘98 Yankees wanted to punch Armando Benitez into 2018.
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