Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 30, 1994 TAG: 9408200012
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The rule stinks.
The first-year minor-league ordinance serves an automatic two-game suspension to any player leaving his position during a fight. Players are fined, too. It's an attempt to limit fights to a few players instead of a few dozen.
``We broke the rule,'' Salem manager Trent Jewett said Friday night after his Bucs lost to the same Blue Rocks at Municipal Field, 5-4. ``It's a horserule. We got what we deserved. [But the rule] shouldn't exist. Everything in baseball was fine last year. It's been that way for 100-something years. I don't know why some genius decided to change it.''
Ditto, said Wilmington manager Mike Jirschele, Blue Rocks designated hitter Andy Stewart and Bucs catcher Jason Kendall.
The suspensions, announced Thursday by the Class A Carolina League, followed the league's review of a brawl last Sunday when Salem played at Wilmington.
The league raked in $4,600 in fines - $2,450 from Wilmington and $2,150 from Salem.
The suspensions are staggered so only two players at a time - one position player, one pitcher - from each team will miss games. Pitchers miss games, not starts. Penalties began with Thursday's games.
Twenty-four Wilmington players were suspended, led by outfielder Roderick Myers' four-game, $200 sentence for leaving the dugout and charging Bucs pitcher Marc Wilkins.
Salem had 20 players suspended. Outfielder Danny Clyburn, pitcher Rich Townsend and Wilkins each received three-game suspensions and $150 fines. Most players from both teams received two-game suspensions and $100 fines, the automatic penalty for a player leaving his position to join a fight.
Clyburn and Townsend missed Friday's game. For Wilmington, Myers and pitcher Robert Toth were shelved. Townsend and Bucs outfielder Jake Austin will miss today's game.
The brawl began when Wilmington shortstop Felix Martinez hit Salem's Kendall in the face with a relay throw. Kendall said he thought it was intentional.
``Then again, if I was playing shortstop and he was sliding into second, I'd throw in his face, too,'' Kendall said.
Jewett said he didn't think it was on purpose. Nevertheless, when Martinez came to bat the next time, Wilkins buzzed him twice around the legs. Verbal confrontations followed, and Myers apparently touched off the melee when he bolted from the dugout.
Plate umpire Scott Higgins, who ironically called balls and strikes Friday in Salem, ejected eight players.
Salem won that game, 8-1.
For Wilmington, Martinez, Stewart and catcher Lance Jennings each received a three-game suspension and a $150 fine.
``Everyone knows when they've got to serve, everyone knows they have to pay the money,'' said Stewart, satisfied with his game-winning, three-run double Friday. ``It's a lot of money from what we make. It's almost half your [pay]check. Nobody really got seriously hurt. Everyone's got to go out there.''
Jirschele, who was ejected from Friday's game for an animated sixth-inning argument with bases umpire Ron Kulpa, said he didn't like the fight-suspension rule, but he said he was expecting the suspensions. Kendall, sporting a healing cut lip, blasted the rule using the same organic adjective as his manager.
Salem general manager Sam Lazarro called the fines unheard of.
``In years gone by, a bench-clearing brawl might result in about $700 in fines, and it had to be pretty ugly,'' Lazarro said.
by CNB