King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Angels, Rangers brawl, and almost fight too! Plus: Another writer suggests firing the punter. It's crazy, but it's good crazy.
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Aug. 17, 2006 | Funny headline on the front page of Yahoo Sports and elsewhere Thursday morning: "Brawl mars Rangers' victory over Angels."
Hey, listen. I watched that game. The brawl was the highlight. And it wasn't even much of a brawl.
It was a hilariously typical baseball fight. The Angels and Rangers, division rivals and, more important, teams that have over the years copied each other's uniform designs, have been engaged in a simmering beanball battle since last week that exploded into open warfare Wednesday night when Angel Adam Kennedy charged the mound after being plunked by Scott Feldman.
Two Angels pitchers had been tossed in the previous half inning for hitting Rangers batters, so Kennedy figured this latest HBP, square in his butt, had a message stapled to it. He rushed out toward the mound.
Feldman, who's 6-6, 225 pounds, or about six inches and 40 pounds bigger than Kennedy, dropped his glove and waited for Kennedy with what can only be described as giddy anticipation.
Kennedy kept coming, to his credit. I'd have done that thing baseball players often do when they're charging the mound, slowed down ever so slightly so that catcher Gerald Laird could tackle me from behind and defuse the whole situation.
Fortunately for Kennedy, Feldman threw a punch with his pitching motion, kind of a sidearm slap. They grappled briefly as others converged on the mound, third baseman Mark DeRosa tackled Kennedy, and then everybody did that other typical baseball fight thing, find someone as unwilling as you are to fight, grab each other and play peacemaker.
Do 50 guys squared off, holding each other's jersey with one hand and patting each other on the back with the other, constitute a brawl?
I've seen more exciting fights on Don King pay-per-view telecasts, and that's really saying something.
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Never punt? Now you're talking! [PERMALINK]
What if NFL teams never punted? I don't mean go for it more often on fourth down, I mean never, ever punt. Fire the punter. Regular readers know this is a fantasy of mine, but I'm thrilled to have found another writer proposing it.
Jason Scheib asks the question in a column in Football Outsiders headlined, and I'm breathing heavily here, "Never Punting."
Mmmmm. Never punting.