To add injury to absurdity, when our bullpen coach came running in from left field to join the fight, he pulled a hamstring halfway to the pile.

The thing about being on national TV is that later no one can tell tall stories about what they did in the fight; it is on tape. Supermen can be reduced to mere mortals when the “play” button is hit. So  perhaps for the benefit of the cameras  we puff out our chests, stare one another down and occasionally bear-hug someone to make sure they don’t escalate things. But I am confident that only a few players really know how to fight. I certainly never took any martial-arts classes. I am even more confident that hardly any of them really want to fight. After all, our bodies are the instruments with which we make our living and if they become damaged, there goes our livelihood.

There are a lot of unwritten rules in the game of baseball that you tacitly accept when you put on the uniform. When one of those is broken, there is yet another unwritten rule of retaliation. If you steal a base when you’re ahead by a lot of runs late in the game, one of your teammates will get drilled by a pitch in the back. If you take too much time to enjoy a home run you hit, either you or a teammate will get drilled by a pitch in the back. If you make too hard a slide into a base and almost hurt your opponent, a teammate may get drilled by a pitch in the back. If you dare do anything to hurt the opposing team’s pitcher, with or without intent, you might as well break out the boxing gloves. And if he is “the ace” of their team  Armageddon. Because the pitcher has the right to act as instigator, enforcer or retaliator, he is the key to how the sentencing is brought down. Therefore the little, stitched white ball in his hand delivers the verdict on behalf of judge, jury and executioner.

These rules, and others (they are too numerous to list), when broken, eventually result in a brawl. It may not happen that same day, because the grudge-holding nature of the game has no statute of limitations. According to my unfinished business archive, I still owe Hideki Irabu for hitting me in the back with the first pitch of the game in Yankee Stadium nine years ago. Since we are both retired I may have to exact revenge in some Best Buy parking lot.

Seattle Mariners first baseman Richie Sexton, responding recently to a question about why he charged the mound, stated, “I understood the situation, and there is a right and wrong way to play the game. He hits me below the shoulders, and I am fine with that. But when you get up near the face that is when you start talking about careers.”

Yes, I had forgotten this rule. The what-body-part-you-can-hit-out-of-frustration rule. Of course, a 95-mile-per-hour fastball off your spine below your shoulders isn’t what I would call “career-extending,” either.