Now That's A Brawl

I just saw this over on LoHud and had to share it with you guys. It's been making the rounds across the interwebs so you may have already seen it, but if not, it's a huge brawl that happened in during a game in Cuba on February 28th.

Shades of the Juan Marichal-John Rosenboro fight back in '65.

Here's an explanation on the events the took place prior to the fight from Peter C. Bjarkman (hat-tip to Big League Stew):

The Sancti Spíritus versus Industriales matches got off to a rather riotous start last weekend in José Huelga Stadium. Saturday’s opener was anything but what might have been anticipated, with the Blue Lions rolling to an easy road 3-1 victory behind the slick starting pitching of Odrisamer Despaigne (6.1 innings with a single tally allowed) and substantial bullpen aid from Frank Montieth (2.2 innings of near-perfect one-hit relief). Despaigne had started the season fast but closed on the downside and was smacked around by the Roosters only a week earlier in Havana. Sunday’s second game (an 8-1 Sancti Spíritus win) was a truly ugly affair, ending with one of the worst on-field incidents in Cuban post-season history. Brushed back by one ninth-inning pitch and then hit by a second, Industriales catcher Lisvan Correa took matters into his own hands by charging the mound and attempting to club offending pitcher Yaniel Sosa with his wooden bat. There have been a number of conflicting accounts detailing what actually transpired during the bench-clearing brawl that followed and eventually required police intervention. Later reports out of Havana suggested that local law officers overreacted and unfairly roughed up several Industriales ballplayers. Other versions had offending Industriales athletes initially attacking the local police contingent that was struggling to restore on-field order. Details will likely never be entirely sorted out, but there remains little dispute that the unsavory mess was originally precipitated by Correa’s unsportsmanlike bat-waving kamikaze attack.

There were several immediate fallouts from the regrettable Sunday events and the judgments and suspensions handed out by league officials seemed to carry the clear message that Industriales ballplayers carried the largest blame for what had happened at game’s end. Lisvan Correa, the initiator of the hostilities with his bat-wielding assault, suffered a six-month suspension from league action. Pitcher Sosa was suspended for the next three playoff games and Industriales outfielder Carlos Taberas earned two games on the sidelines. Three additional Industriales players (Frank Camilo Montieth, Stayler Hernández, Eliut Torres) and two from Sancti Spíritus (reserves Yoani Delgado and José Luis Sáez) were also slapped with one-game penalties.

Crazy, huh? Could you imagine A-Rod running out to beat Papelbon with his bat? One can only dream.

In all seriousness, was taking your bat to the mound really necessary? I know it must suck to get hit with a baseball, but come on, that's what fists are for. No need to bring deadly weapons into the mix.