Yankees: A rational way for the league to handle brawls

The Yankees/Tigers brawl last Thursday night could have been controlled if the league had adopted some simple rules. Here’s an idea the league could enact – if they wanted to curb injuries and suspensions.

Most Yankees fans don’t attend or tune-in to a game expecting to see a fight on the field. Baseball is not hockey and brawls on the field are rare. But when they occur, it seems everyone, including the umpires, temporarily lose their mind.

The result is nearly always suspensions delivered arbitrarily by the league, and sometimes injuries occur that cause damage to players with even more time lost.

Think back to the melee last week. How did Gary Sanchez end up getting suspended? He was not on the field when the disturbance broke out. No, he came charging from the dugout to come to the aid of his teammates

The Yankees and Tigers bullpens both emptied as did both dugouts. And soon we had fifty players plus coaches, and maybe even the bat boys piled up or trying to find a partner to dance with.

Therein lies the problem. But before we get to a possible solution, there is cause to wonder if the league wants to end the occasional brawls we see. After all, in today’s culture, baseball is generally viewed as a pastoral, unexciting, and non-violent sport. And as evidenced by this column, we’re still writing and reading about an event that occurred days ago.

It’s a cynical view of MLB until we remember that baseball is driven by the almighty entertainment dollar and there is a wealth of competition out there to deal with. But let’s say that’s not the case and the league wants a better way to handle these aberrations.

A rational solution

The league only needs to adopt one simple rule. Any player who leaves the dugout or the bullpen when a disturbance breaks out automatically is ejected from the game and subject to a fine and/or suspension.

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Managers and coaches are exempted, as their responsibility should be to protect their players from injury or ejection from the game. But depending on the judgment of the league, they could be subject to discipline if they add to the melee.

The video comes from everywhere these days, and like it was used in the Yankees/Tigers incident, can easily be the final deciding mechanism should there be questions when disciplinary measures are taken.

The rule also enables the umpires to keep control of the game better because there will be fewer bodies to keep track of, making them better able to provide the league with a more accurate report.

If the rule were intact last Thursday, Gary Sanchez would not be facing a suspension because he would not have left the dugout, or at least I hope that would be the case.

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Players on the field, with blatant visibility, might also think twice about their actions. And it also might occur to them help will probably not be on the way because their teammates are in “lockdown.”

The solution is simple and easy to enforce – if the league wants to…………

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