MLB’s brawl penalties hit mark
Garagiola got it right by not lowering boom
Major League Baseball didn’t dramatize, exaggerate or show the slightest overreaction to the brawl that had the USA and Canada talking.
The baseball police didn’t turn Texas Rangers second baseman Rougned Odor into a villain.
They didn’t make Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista out to be a martyr.
They didn’t really place much blame on anyone for Sunday’s Blue Jays-Rangers game-turned-street fight, except for Odor’s impersonation of Roberto Duran, resulting in an eight-game suspension.
The suspensions and fines issued Tuesday by Joe Garagiola Jr., senior vice president for standards and on-field operations, were perfect.
Hey, if Judge Merrick Garland doesn’t receive Senate approval for the U.S. Supreme Court, we have a potentially ideal replacement in Garagiola.
Garagiola’s voice was clear with reason in issuing his discipline. He didn’t quite come out and say it, but we’ll take liberty and paraphrase.
“Hey boys, we love old school baseball, and despite our rules changes we still believe that you have the right to discipline yourselves on the field. But please, let’s refrain from acting like thugs when we get angry.” Odor, besides his eight-game
suspension that he will appeal, was fined $5,000 for delivering that right cross to Bautista’s face.
Bautista was suspended for one game for his actions in the brawl and his postgame comments in which he said he deliberately went hard into Odor at second base, with no intent to stay on the base. He also will appeal.
Rangers shortstop Elvis Andrus was suspended for one game for throwing a punch at Blue Jays outfielder Kevin Pillar, a penalty he immediately accepted.
Blue Jays reliever Jesse Chavez was suspended for three games for hitting Rangers first baseman Prince Fielder after both teams had been issued warnings, as was manager John Gibbons, who returned to the field after being ejected earlier in the game.
In all, 14 players or coaches — some of them on the disabled list — were suspended or fined.
Take a bow, Mr. Garagiola, the disciplinary measures were spoton.
“In the heat of the moment, you’ve got to do what you think is right,” said Pillar, fined $1,000 but not suspended for running onto the field in hopes of retaliation. “You’ve got to go out there and defend yourself and defend your teammates. And just given the circumstances, I felt like (Odor) was owed one, and I was going out there to get him.
“I think they did a good job. They did what they felt was right.”
The most difficult decision, of course, was determining the length of Odor’s suspension. Yet the way Garagiola figured it, there was no reason to make an example of Odor.
Odor instead received the standard suspension that just about every player gets for throwing a punch that hits a man in the face.
Or breaks someone’s collar- bone.
Former San Diego Padres outfielder Carlos Quentin, who was hit by a pitch from then-Los Angeles Dodgers starter Zack Greinke in 2013, charged the mound and broke Greinke’s collarbone in the scuffle. His eightgame suspension was the largest handed out to a position player for his actions on the field since Garagiola’s reign began in 2011.
The only other player to even receive five games under Garagiola’s watch was Milwaukee Brewers catcher Martin Maldonado in 2014. He was in a brawl that be- gan when Pittsburgh Pirates starter Gerrit Cole took exception to Carlos Gomez’s bat flip when he hit a triple. Maldonado swung and hit then-Pirates third baseman Travis Snider in the face. Sound familiar? The difference is this brawl started seven months after Bautista’s bat flip in Game 5 of the 2015 American League Division Series between the Blue Jays and Rangers.
The Rangers never forgot and waited until Sunday to retaliate. Rangers reliever Matt Bush, who during the division series was completing a work-release program as part of his sentence for hitting a motorcyclist while intoxicated, drilled Bautista in the ribs with a 96-mph fastball. Bautista retaliated with a vicious slide into Odor while breaking up a double play. And Odor answered back with a punch that will be remembered as long as he plays the game, hitting Bautista flush in the face, sending his helmet and sunglasses flying.
“I’m not going to criticize a player for playing hard,” Rangers manager Jeff Banister said Monday. “I’m not going to criticize anybody for any of those situations on our side or their side. Things happen during those situations that are ugly. They look bad. It’s not good for anybody.”
Certainly, MLB and umpiring crews will be closely watching Odor, who has irritated several teams with his aggressive style of play and now has a target on his back.
If he didn’t have one before, Odor has a reputation now. It’s a fabulous rep if you happen to be his teammate. If you’re on the other side, you might think differently, besides being a little careful the next time you consider sliding hard into Odor.
“He’s the furthest from dirty,” Banister insisted. Oh, and the punch? “It’s part of the game,” Odor said. “I don’t care about the other teams. I play the game how I play it. Play the game to win.”
When two teams play the game hard and with a fiery passion, well, these things can happen.
“Two teams played a very close playoff series last year,” Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said on his Dallas radio show. “They beat us. Bautista beat us. He had a huge home run. But it’s competition. Emotions that go with it on the field, among the players.
“The way I look at it is neither side hit a batter up high, there was no risk of really hurting anybody. The slide was aggressive and was against the new rule, but it wasn’t up spikes high. There were no sucker punches regardless of what was made of that. Two guys were basically looking at each other at the time.
“That’s kind of how I look at it.”
It’s exactly how Garagiola and MLB looked at it, too.
Let them play.