Baseball brawls make me laugh. One, because I am reminded of something Patrick Hruby wrote: Thing is, baseball fights aren’t actually fights … they’re more like the aggression displays you see from angry monkeys on Animal Planet.
But it’s Sarah Kurchak’s description of the baseball brawl that turns a giggle into a series of snorts and, ultimately, tears of laughter. She wrote: They appear to represent the very breakdown of civilization on the field … a bit like watching Benedict Cumberbatch’s flailing slap fight scene in Starter For 10.
Fists flew, ugly words were spewed and fans booed during Monday’s matinee at AT&T Park in San Francisco after Giants pitcher Hunter Strickland planted a 98 mile per hour fastball on Bryce Harper’s hip.
The baseball brawl is one of the strangest things. I suppose its because the game is so peaceful and docile. Fighting brings chaos. The baseball brawl makes highly skilled athletes look clumsy. They make the playground fights from my childhood look like professional boxers. Baseball players are not trained to fight, and when they do, it’s obvious they’re lost.
Even the most memorable baseball brawls — Ryan/Ventura, Harrelson/Rose, Koufax/Roseboro — turn into dog piles of grown men, tackling, wrestling, hugging, followed by a lot of shouting at one another.
Watch this and tell me … Now, what do you see? Cumberbatch? Angry monkeys on Animal Planet? If you didn’t before, you will now.
