The Bernstein Brief: Fighting In Baseball Is Just Plain Dumb
By Dan Bernstein--
CBSChicago.com senior columnist
(CBS) Baseball fighting sucks.
It accomplishes nothing other than needlessly endangering players, in both what precipitates these encounters and then the ensuing, unpredictable confrontations themselves. Then it gets important team assets devalued by suspensions. It's even sillier than hockey fighting, which is already ridiculous and pleasantly on the decline.
Ned Yost's meat-headed Royals -- who engaged in a brawl with the White Sox on Thursday night -- seem to find themselves in the middle of it regularly this season, and if he thinks this is the proper way to manage a team over six months, then he should explain exactly why.
The other party gets dragged into it too, bound by the code of ancient machismo to play everything out. That's the problem, in that it makes a fan similarly dislike one's own team for its involvement.
The Royals have already made themselves look stupid with their childish behavior, despite their impressive start. Now they helped make the White Sox look stupid, too.
A 12-4 team doesn't need this. None of us do.
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's "Boers and Bernstein Show" in afternoon drive. Follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein and read more of his columns here.
