royalsandcelebs

Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!  Brawl time!  Yes!  Finally!  Get out the champagne of beers!  The Royals finally got tired of being the league’s punching bag and got to the punchin’!  I’m excited!  Who’s with me?

It’s been two years since my last memory of a Royals brawl, and, I know it’s not good to perpetuate this whole “violence in sports” issue, but… well, charging the mound is just awesome!  I can’t help it.  There are so many reasons to love a good brawl, but here’s why I love it the most: it symbolizes a team standing together as a team.

Getting hit by a baseball is part of the game, and, honestly, it’s a part of growing up.  In Little League, this is (hopefully) the first chance a young boy gets to suffer pain to themselves in order to help the greater good.  Now, when I say “suffer pain,” I’m not talking about a shot to the head–that’s obviously messed up.  But, hey, when we’re talking about the fastball of a 10-year-old kid hitting your shoulder as you turn in?  That stings, and when you do that for others, your character is being built.  Sure, you’re sore jogging to first, but your friends are cheering you on, one of your male role models (or a coach you despise) is telling you you did a great job, that feels good.  Plus, you automatically get on first base and get the chance to score.  After you run the bases and, hopefully, score, your bruised shoulder doesn’t hurt that bad.  It looks pretty cool, actually.  It’s certainly a lot cooler than the black eye I got playing first base because I didn’t tag the correct spot on first base.  Word to all you young first basemen (and Billy Butler)–don’t stand directly in front of the base as the batter is running full speed towards the bag.  You will get leveled; you will get a black eye; you will break your Wal-Mart brand Oakley rip-offs, and you will drop the ball.

So, with that out of the way, getting hit is less awesome when you’re facing a fastball in the 90s, whether habitually or towards your head.  That’s when the pitcher needs to know “Yeah, I know, I’ll get on base if you hit me, but I might also die if that thing lands in my skull.”  To enforce this, the victim needs to retaliate.  The Royals have been plunked routinely by the White Sox–routinely.  They’re also smart mouths and showboats.  The last time we faced the team, AJ Pyri… I don’t want to spell his name.  So, yeah, Captain D-Bag hit a home run and postured.  He taunted.  Everyone in baseball hates him, and that was a prime example.  He and Brett Tomko had a HUGE altercation during their time in San Francisco, when the good Captain was catching for Admiral No-Strike.  We should have kept Tomko on the roster long enough to ink AJ with his own tramp stamp, and then let the fists go a-wailin’ on round two!

In that last game, former Royals closer Octavio Dotel beaned Miguel Olivo, and Olivo voiced his unhappiness over his starting pitcher, Zack Greinke, not getting his back.  This was about two months ago.  This weekend, we finally got to see some payback.

Former average Royals starter and reliever DJ Carrasco was facing Olivo and brushed him back a couple of times.  Olivo had had enough and charged the mound.  He was tired of this crap.  He was done.  He stormed the mound and then, for some strange reason, stopped.  That looked strange.  It was almost like he wanted to square up and land a really incredible.  Sorry, Charlie, but a brawl moves pretty quick, and in that split-second, you got a big pile of Captain D-Bag grabbing you from behind (please, no jokes).  Benches cleared.  McClure started yelling at the third base coach.  Jose Guillen kept everyone in line (he’s a complicated man, not unlike Shaft or David Caruso, circa 1993).  Carrasco got kicked out, and the craziest man in America, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, went ballistic.  I know, it’s very unreasonable for the pitch that tried to decapitate someone three pitches in a row should be removed from the game.  In the press conference following the slugfest, Ozzie screamed about how he wasn’t going to stop throwing at people and challenged what seemed to be every umpire to their own special, one-on-one mound slosh.  Seriously, if Ozzie doesn’t win the division this year, shouldn’t he be gone?  Shouldn’t he have to leave Chicago and go manage… the Royals?  Awesome times 10.

After the brawl, two innings later, red-hot White Sox outfielder/new first baseman Nick Swisher, got plunked in the thigh by my favorite man-child, Zack Greinke.  Greinke got tossed; Trey Hillman got tossed.  After the game, the Greink told the media he hit him on accident.  After all, it was his roughest inning, and he’d been having trouble with throwing inside to lefties all day.  Oh, and it was hot.  Also, he’d eaten some hot wings after Juan Uribe’s at-bat.  The ball was bound to come out!

My favorite brawls in the past have been out of sheer ridiculous.  Past readers undoubtedly know about my affection for Felix Martinez, everyone’s favorite insignificant sucker-puncher and his puppy dog train of thought during a brawl (”Ooh!  People!  People!  Gotta say hi!  Hey!  Pay attention to me!  Pay attention to me!  Wanna play?  Wanna play?  Wanna play?”).  There’s also Runelvys “Hurricane” Hernandez and his fastballs to Carlos Guillen’s chrome (”Gee, what’d I do?”), which was followed by the great Kyle Farnsworth pile drive of Jeremy Affeldt.  I even liked watching ol’ Sweendog, Mike Sweeney, everyone’s favorite nice guy, go charging after everyone’s favorite schizophrenic pitcher, Jeff Weaver (and his wicked mustache).  This brawl, however, was different.

Two things were accomplished.  Well, three things, I guess.  For starters, we won.  I didn’t think we would.  Usually, when we’re on a roll, and we face a division rival, we crap out.  Get swept.  Become worthless.  This time, we stood our ground.  Good work.  My losing two out of three prediction?  Way off.  Two, we finally fought back, and told all of baseball you can’t track mud onto the Royals anymore.  Ozzie Guillen needs to wipe his feet at the door, or else he’s going to get bounced (or, at least, we’ll try to bounce him and end up with a bloody lip).  Either way, we earned some much needed respect.  And third, we finally have a team we can look forward to playing.  The Kansas City Royals finally have a rivalry again.  We’re getting closer and closer to becoming a major league baseball team again.

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