Mike Dougherty's Blog

A donnybrook or kick-brawling at its best?

I love a benches-clearing brawl in baseball. Usually, the dugouts empty and there’s a lot of pushing and shoving, but the one in the bottom of the first inning Tuesday night between St. Louis and Cincinnati at Great American Ballpark became a bit scary.

Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter (who had pitched Monday night) and the Reds starting pitcher, Johnny Cueto, both were pinned against the backstop as the melee moved from the circle around the home plate area toward the screen.

Either could have been crushed by the swarm of players and coaches caused when both dugouts and bullpens emptied after cross words were exchanged between Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips and Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina.

Carpenter’s back was banged up by Cueto, who began kicking whoever was nearby. When Cards backup catcher Jason LaRue saw that the ace of his pitching staff was getting kicked about, he plowed into the path of Cueto’s legs and feet and took a number of blows to the head and suffered numerous cuts from Cueto’s metal cleats. St. Louis manager Tony LaRussa said after the game that LaRue had suffered a slight concussion.

Phillips started things off by telling reporters after Monday night’s game how he hated the Cardinals, called the St. Louis players a bunch of whiners and accused them of always bitching and moaning. He added that, compared to the Cardinals, he loved the Chicago Cubs, another National League Central Division rival.

Naturally, some of the reporters who heard the Phillips outburst ran to the Cardinals dugout and tried to get their players’ reaction. Most said they would deal with it on the field.

From what I’ve read and watched, the Phillips rant after the Reds’ Monday night loss was a typical example of a brash player making the rivalry all about him, as Phillips often does. I think most Cardinals players were willing to overlook it and “deal with it” on the field.

Going by Reds manager Dusty Baker’s interview with Cardinals broadcaster and former player Mike Shannon before Tuesday’s game, I figure that Phillips was talked to by Baker about creating unnecessary “bulletin board material” in the middle of a an important series.

I figure Phillips, by coming out as the leadoff hitter to start the bottom of the first, and tapping Molina on the shin guard with his bat, was trying to indicate that he was just joking around the night before. Molina, as loyal a teammate as there is, wasn’t ready to make nice and he let him know it.

After Molina told Phillips that he shouldn’t say things about his team and then come out and act like they were friends, they started jawing at each other and everyone else got in the act, including LaRussa and Baker, who have skirmished previously when Baker was managing the San Francisco Giants and the Chicago Cubs.

Any of them could have been hurt, but Cueto’s kicking was beyond anything I’ve seen in that kind of deal. Carpenter apparently was banged up and LaRue looked like he’d been through a meat grinder.

I think Reds catcher Ramon Hernandez tried to calm things down throughout the game by talking to various Cardinals, and, by serving as Cueto’s interpreter after the game, tried to lay the groundwork for a “I was scared” defense by Cueto with the commissioner’s office investigators.

The umpires probably did the best thing possible by kicking LaRussa and Baker out of the game Tuesday night. But there WILL be suspensions and fines coming from this event.

Despite all that, baseball donnybrooks generally are good for the game. It gets fans fired up and talking about baseball. Texas Rangers fans still are talking about the time in 1993 when Nolan Ryan grabbed Robin Ventura by the neck after the Milwaukee infielder charged the mound and pummeled him about the head. An image that remains burned in Red Sox fans’ memories from this decade is when Boston pitcher Pedro Martinez avoided the charge of Yankees coach Don Zimmer and tossed him to the ground.

When the fights are trouble is when someone is seriously injured from the skirmishes. And that’s what it appeared might happen in Tuesday night’s main event in Cincinnati.