Thursday, September 2, 2010
Major League Base-brawl
Last night while I was watching TV, I was surprised by a commercial I saw for an upcoming program. The commercial was for the next broadcasting of the ESPN news and highlights show, Sportscenter. I am very familiar with this program and watch it often but last night’s episode was glorifying a major fight that happened in Major League Baseball. Fighting in professional sports is a very big deal, except in baseball. In the NFL or NBA, suspensions and heavy fines come for throwing a punch or even leaving the bench during an altercation. In baseball, you are allowed to have a bench clearing brawl with minor consequences only for the instigators of the fight. Every sports league is concerned with their image and keeping it perfect for their fans. Professional athletes are role models to young kids, especially aspiring athletes. I don’t know why but athletes, coaches, and owners in professional baseball, and apparently the media who are covering it, have seem to have lost sight of this. The anchors for Sportscenter were advertising that episode as a Mixed Martial Arts or WWE fight. They were yelling and screaming and getting worked up like they were are a royal rumble. Both teams left their bench and collided in a massive pile at the pitching mound after plenty of ‘bean balls’ and a frustrated batter finally charging the mound. Punches were thrown, people were thrown and pushed on the ground, and one guy even threw a nasty close line that almost knocked someone out cold. How can it be considered entertainment when adults are throwing fastballs at each other clearing the benches to fight? How can they be proud to broadcast that on a sports news network, the anchors cheering them on the whole time. I was truly surprised and appalled at the lack of maturity and discipline from the highest paid athletes in professional sports, and by the supposed approval from the TV network which usually discourages behavior like that.
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Richard Marley makes quite the interesting, albeit alarming point about the state of the character and integrity of the Major League Baseball association. It is certainly true that in the vast majority of professional sports there exists the possibility and reality of conflict in the arena's and stadium's of our favorite franchises. Soccer fans watched as Zidane went so far as to head butt an opposing team member. Pacers fans watched in horror as Ron Artest instigated a stadium wide brawl after punching an opinionated fan. Put simply, there is not a single sport, team or club that remains untainted by scandal or the occassional outburst. Overwhelmingly these issues and the players who intiate them are disciplined and made an example out off through paycuts and/or suspensions. That is except of course -as Richard points out- in the Sport of baseball. I agree with him whole-heartedly that there is a very pronounced disparity in the level of discipline in baseball that has spurred a degredation in the integrity in America's favorite past time. The last decade in baseball has brought us a league wide pay-strike, countless steriod scandals and less than admirable players like Alex Rodriguez and Jose Conseco. It seems that in baseball it’s okay to act up as long as the media gets a piece of the action and the crowd is entertained. Only mild if any retribution is to be expected and therefore there is nothing to deter hot-headed players from blowing up. Maybe the MLB has relaxed conflict managing tactics to keep the games going, or to allow for the occasional garnering of a headline, or maybe the league is just behind in its conflict management strategies; whatever the case something must be done. If baseball players are continually allowed to conduct themselves in such a manner the future of the sport seems as dim as the stadium lights after a ball game.
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