Lovers, Not Fighters
The New York Times
May 9, 2008
By Doug Glanville
Vicious curveballs are tricky, both on and off the field. And...
Once I had eluded the 90-mile-an-hour fastball sizzling toward my head, I knew it was time for me to keep my promise.
I lunged into a dead sprint toward the pitcher and managed to push him off of the mound. But for the rest of what became a bench-clearing brawl I saw virtually nothing. The opposing catcher had me face-down in a full nelson near the pitching rubber.
Why did I get myself — and everyone else — into this?
I had watched from the dugout as yet another home run by my team sailed over the left field fence to turn an already one-sided game into a complete blowout. My instincts told me that my opponent was going to retaliate out of frustration, and I had vowed to my teammates that I would defend our honor by charging the mound if he did.
That was the first of four fights that our Double-A team, the Orlando Cubs, would engage in with the Greenville Braves that series. The fights devolved into the realm of the strangely humorous with each subsequent round.
One fight started because our pitcher threw his bat at the opposing pitcher. Another because our manager literally jumped on top of the neck of the opposing manager. A third when both managers were discussing the ground rules with the umpire before the game and started taking swings at each other. (The two were banned from coaching against each other for the rest of the season.)
The major leagues also had its share of comedy. Take the fight I was in with the Atlanta Braves, when I was a member of the Philadelphia Phillies. Over the course of a week, my teammate Paul Byrd, a pitcher, had unintentionally hit Braves catcher Eddie Perez not once but twice in the back.
Perez and Byrd had once been teammates (and Bible study partners), but Perez had apparently left forgiveness at the door. When Byrd stepped up to the plate for his next at-bat, Perez hit him and then jumped him. Since I was on-deck and the closest player to the fray, I ran over to pry them apart.
The next thing I knew, I was at the bottom of a pile of players, my legs trapped, spikes barely missing my various body parts. The Braves’ Ozzie Guillen evidently decided that the best way to get out of the pile was to pull me out by the head. I had a stiff neck for three days.
What I found interesting was that instead of Perez and Byrd ripping each other’s hair out, they were locked together in a protective embrace, apologizing and praying to get out of this mass of humanity. Everyone within earshot was wondering why we all risked physical harm for a séance.
To add injury to absurdity, when our bullpen coach came running in from left field to join the fight, he pulled a hamstring halfway to the pile.
The thing about being on national TV is that later no one can tell tall stories about what they did in the fight; it is on tape. Supermen can be reduced to mere mortals when the “play” button is hit. So — perhaps for the benefit of the cameras — we puff out our chests, stare one another down and occasionally bear-hug someone to make sure they don’t escalate things. But I am confident that only a few players really know how to fight. I certainly never took any martial-arts classes. I am even more confident that hardly any of them really want to fight. After all, our bodies are the instruments with which we make our living and if they become damaged, there goes our livelihood.
There are a lot of unwritten rules in the game of baseball that you tacitly accept when you put on the uniform. When one of those is broken, there is yet another unwritten rule of retaliation. If you steal a base when you’re ahead by a lot of runs late in the game, one of your teammates will get drilled by a pitch in the back. If you take too much time to enjoy a home run you hit, either you or a teammate will get drilled by a pitch in the back. If you make too hard a slide into a base and almost hurt your opponent, a teammate may get drilled by a pitch in the back. If you dare do anything to hurt the opposing team’s pitcher, with or without intent, you might as well break out the boxing gloves. And if he is “the ace” of their team — Armageddon. Because the pitcher has the right to act as instigator, enforcer or retaliator, he is the key to how the sentencing is brought down. Therefore the little, stitched white ball in his hand delivers the verdict on behalf of judge, jury and executioner.
These rules, and others (they are too numerous to list), when broken, eventually result in a brawl. It may not happen that same day, because the grudge-holding nature of the game has no statute of limitations. According to my unfinished business archive, I still owe Hideki Irabu for hitting me in the back with the first pitch of the game in Yankee Stadium nine years ago. Since we are both retired I may have to exact revenge in some Best Buy parking lot.
Seattle Mariners first baseman Richie Sexton, responding recently to a question about why he charged the mound, stated, “I understood the situation, and there is a right and wrong way to play the game. He hits me below the shoulders, and I am fine with that. But when you get up near the face that is when you start talking about careers.”
Yes, I had forgotten this rule. The what-body-part-you-can-hit-out-of-frustration rule. Of course, a 95-mile-per-hour fastball off your spine below your shoulders isn’t what I would call “career-extending,” either.
The year that my team got into those four fights, minor league officials wanted to crack down, so they instituted a strict fine system with suspensions for anyone who left the bench to join in. This put quite a damper on the retaliation protocol, to the point where when one of my teammates charged the mound after being hit by a pitch, he stopped halfway and started scolding the pitcher. That was a first: intimidation by lecture.
Since in the minor leagues most players are living paycheck to paycheck, the new fine system worked like a charm. During that same on-field berating, I looked into our dugout from its midst and noticed that one of my teammates, Mike Carter, was breaking yet another unwritten rule by not joining his teammates in the rumble on the field. To raise his violation status from plain wrong to egregious, he was the only one who did not join his teammates. I asked him about this later. “Mike Carter has to pay his bills,” he replied.
The irony of these on-field altercations is that the fans are often much more likely to engage in a real fight than the players. When they fight in the stands to defend their teams (or for other reasons), they often go for the knock-out. Players just go to send the message, “We will not be intimidated!” while whispering, “Watch my right arm, I need that.”
Baseball etiquette is a powerful part of the game, mostly defining the rules by which you can fight, intimidate and exact retribution. This is considered necessary because teammates are our family, a band of brothers, and we have to look out for one another to protect the house. Even if we have to step in harm’s way without knowing how to throw a punch.
After 15 professional years of memorizing this sacred tome that has been passed down from generation to generation of baseball players, I have it etched in my being that you must be ready to do whatever it takes to defend your baseball family. However, I have also come to be thankful that when all is said and done, most players are really just lovers, not fighters.
Doug Glanville, who played nine years in the major leagues for the Cubs, Phillies and Rangers, is writing this guest column during the 2008 baseball season. Glanville served on the executive subcommittee of the Major League Baseball Players Association and is currently a consultant with Baseball Factory, a high-school player development program. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 with a degree in systems science and engineering.
New York Times 05/09/2008
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