Baseball making big error if it fails in limiting fights Amplifying punishment would make strong pitch

If I were ever given the opportunity to levy fines or issue suspensions in Major League Baseball for on-the-field fights, I’d begin the whole process by changing the rules governing all this stuff in the first place.

For some unknown reason, professional baseball has allowed players to leave the bench or dugout areas and charge the area of the playing field where fisticuffs and squabbles transpire.

I give leagues like the NBA credit for putting the hammer down on such dubious behavior by levying very stiff fines and suspensions for such ridiculous action.

What I don’t understand is baseball’s hesitancy to do so. Unlike pro hockey and pro football, players have no protective devices built into their standard uniform. I blame baseball Commissioner Bud Selig – he of the feet dragging in handling baseball’s worst problem in its history, steroid abuse – for the continuing lack of true action policy.

What is the difference, my friends, between baseball brawls and the subsequent slapping of the wrists that comes from the league offices, and all the furor that is created when the same thing transpires in pro basketball?

The answer is simple: The severity of the punishment.

No, I won’t subscribe to the notion that the landscape of professional baseball mandates that such brawls are a part of the game. And I won’t accept the notion that in this sport – baseball – players should rush out to protect teammates under fire.

Heck, Tampa’s entire staff hinted about the subsequent mess in their radio pregame interviews that nefarious day with WRKO’s Joe Castiglione.

Yes, baseball’s history shows all this brawling to be pretty much standard fare, but in this day and age of player safety, it’s ironic that so little is done to stop what other sports are trying to stop.

Is baseball headed in hockey’s direction where without a fight the entertainment quotient diminishes? Let’s hope not. If, like broadcaster Jim Rome, we crave this stuff as part of the game, then we are all in trouble.

While I’m up on this soap box, I would be remiss as a longtime Red Sox fan if I didn’t speak to the issue of NESN postgame broadcaster Dave McCarty, who suggested flippantly the other night that Barry Bonds might be just the answer to what is missing from the current Sox lineup. Obviously, a reference to replacing ailing David Ortiz, who is on the DL with a wrist injury, McCarty didn’t think this one through and received total silence from his on-stage cronies, Tom Caron and Lou Merloni. Someone ad-libbed the script, and, I’m guessing, that higher authorities will speak to that verbal faux pas sooner rather than later.

30-Second Time Out

As the Lakers and the Celtics prepare for Game 3 of the NBA finals tonight in Los Angeles, I couldn’t help thinking how much I dislike the two-three-two series arrangement for this year’s championship.

Giving the team with the poorer record of the two a Game 5 home game – the potentially all-important game in a seven-game series – takes away the advantage from the team with the best record, namely the Celtics.

Factor into all that the distance between the two cities, and Celtics fans have to be happy to be ahead 2-0.

So far, so good for the C’s as they go after title 17. Boston’s superior bench has made the difference to date, but the switch to the West Coast will eventually tell the tale in this year’s title run.

bdnsports@bangordailynews.net