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Monday Bantering: more on the odorous brawl

By Tom Dakers
Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

Everyone is writing about last night's game, so let's share a few links.

Personal opinions out of the way first:

  • I really wish my favorite sport could grow up. Get past playground justice and act like they left elementary school long ago.
  • If you are still whining about losing a game 7 months ago, you don't get to complain someone else is a crybaby. Sam Dyson stated that he didn't see the batflip but still pretends it was a personal slight against him. In real life, if he's more worried about a personal slight than losing the series for his teammates, he's got his piorities all messed up. I thought the team was supposed to be more important than the player.
  • Whatever Zaun might say, throwing a ball at someone, from 60 feet away is the definition of cowardice.
  • Baseball should look at the throw from Odor separate from the punch when thinking about suspensions.
Some links.

Chris Cotillo, at MLB Daily Dish, looks at how long a suspension Odor should get. He's suggesting 10-12 games. My opinion is that, as silly as it seems, baseball will try to even things up, meaning that Bautista (or a combination of Bautista, Chavez and Pillar will get a suspension roughly equal to Odor's. But Chris takes a measured look at it, comparing it to past suspensions.

Richard Griffin has his say on it all. I like how he starts:
Matt Bush is an idiot. Rougned Odor is a punk. Jose Bautista is an old-school baller that plays the game right. John Gibbons is spontaneous and genuine. Jesse Chavez understands what needs to be done. And even though the Rangers may believe they evened the score for the bat flip by Bautista in Game 5 of the ALDS, I guarantee the Texas veteran players don't feel good about it.
And he ends with this:

The Jays lost the battle 7-6, but they are hoping that eventually the 2016 war can be won. There is nothing for the Jays to be ashamed of in this fight. But the Rangers? That's another story.

John Lott, at Blue Jays Nation, has pretty much the same world view I do, we should be past this sort of stupidity.

The culture : It comes down to this. In baseball, retaliation trumps everything else. Donaldson nicely articulated the conflict when he talked about rushing headlong into the fray, thereby potentially depriving himself of another chance to help his team win: "We feel like we have to protect our guys, especially when something like this happens. It's kind of an unfortunate incident for everybody."

I wish that winning trumped everything.

Sam Miller, at Baseball Prospectus, picks 14 heroes of the brawl.

I really don't think anyone came out of that a hero, but it is a fun read.

And, for something completely different, Jeff Zimmerman looks at Tommy John Surgery. There is a lot of good information in there.

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