Another Assinine Decision by MLB

You might remember back in May how Alex Rodriguez shouted at a Blue Jays infielder (a rookie infielder) as he was settling under a pop-up and the kid dropped it. The Jays were hopping mad and started a ruckus about how it was "bush league," when anyone who's ever played organized baseball understands that you have to catch the ball and not be distracted by yelling. These guys are (supposedly) major leaguers, for pete's sake. Little Leaguers know how to concentrate on pop-ups.

So the Jays were really mad. And since they royally suck and have nothing else to play for, they've been waiting for the Yankees to come back to town. So on Monday, in ARod's first at bat, Jesse Litsch throws a pitch at ARod. ARod doesn't complain and simply plays the game. Okay, fine, you've made your point, Toronto.

But no. On Tuesday night, Josh Towers throws a fastball at ARod's knee and hits him. ARod gets a little irritated because now this is two-for-one and that's just stupid. Towers reacts like a jackass, telling the best hitter in baseball to just take his base and get out of there. Towers, it should be noted, sucks.

The benches clear and Matt Stairs, a fat, useless slug of a DH tries to get at ARod several times. Order is restored and ARod goes to first. He's standing there when Towers starts mouthing off at him again, to which you can see ARod say, "What? Are you talking to me?" The benches clear again and again Matt Stairs goes after ARod. The best part of this was Shelly Duncan of the Yankees (all 6'5" of him) sprinting out to intercept the stumpy Stairs.

So the Yankees go about the game and then, leading 7-0 in the 7th inning, Roger Clemens evens up the score by drilling Alex Rios in the middle of the back with a fastball. Well, what the hell were the Blue Jays expecting? Clemens, a guy who's not afraid to throw at people's heads, to just not retaliate at all? It's an eye-for-an-eye game and Clemens was standing up for his teammate. The Yankees let it go on Monday but they got pushed and pushed and pushed on Tuesday and finally had had enough. And so Clemens (and Torre) get tossed. Fine, those are the stupid MLB rules (once the benches are warned); so be it.

Well, today Roger Clemens has been suspended for five games. For an incident he did not create. Josh Towers, who incited the bench-clearing, male-posturing bullshit? No suspension. Matt Stairs, who continued to escalate things after they'd already been calmed down? Nothing but a minor fine.

Well-played, baseball, well-played.

If you really want to eliminate fighting, you look at the whole situation and apply some logic, rather than just black and white rules. When ARod was hit on Monday, you let it go, just like the Yankees did. Nobody retaliated, because they realized the Jays were still pissed off about something. And then the Blue Jays pushed it beyond reasonable, which you can always (and easily) determine when the whole other team is visibly pissed. Okay, you hit our best player once and we let it go... now you drilled a fastball at his kneecap. That's enough.

But no, suspend Clemens. That makes sense.