Beginning with their bewildering plan to cancel the 1994 World Series, baseball's brain trust has delivered a series of cockamamie decisions.
From starting playoff games after 10 P.M. to refusing to ban androstenedione to floating a goofy proposal to put six teams in the AL Central and only four in two other divisions, commissioner Bud Selig and his cronies have rarely displayed any common sense.
But this week's decision to levy harsh sentences on participants in the recent Chicago White Sox/Detroit Tigers fight was a long-overdue bolt of sanity and savvy.
Sixteen White Sox and Tigers were suspended for a total of 82 games for their actions in during two ugly bench-clearing brawls on April 22. Tigers Manager Phil Garner and White Sox Manager Jerry Manuel were each suspended eight games for not controlling their teams. Tigers coach Juan Samuel, who also threw some punches, was suspended 15 games. Nine members of the Tigers and White Sox were fined, ranging from $500 to $3,000.
Some ''purists'' argue that the punishment is too harsh, claiming that previous fights have never sparked such discipline.
Those nay-sayers are correct that baseball has not consistently punished fighting players. But their ''That's the way it's always been done,'' argument doesn't fly anymore as we enter the 21st century.
For much of baseball's first 100 years, fights were only seen by those at the game. But now with ESPN, CNN and countless satellites beaming every beanball war across the nation, every fight is magnified in living color for everyone to see.
How can any fan who saw Detroit's Karim Garcia sucker-punch White Sox pitcher Keith Foulke say that's part of baseball? More importantly, how can anyone say that Garcia's three-game suspension - with pay - is too harsh?
There have always been fights in baseball, and there always will be. Any game that pits hulking, hyper-competitive athletes throwing rock-hard projectiles at each other is a combustible cauldron for conflict. But there is no comparison between a shoving match and the savagery exhibited by the Tigers and White Sox.
No matter how hard the baseball ''purists'' argue, there is simply no good reason to condone a massive gang fight between 50 angry men.
The penalties levied by Selig and baseball's vice president of on-field operations, Frank Robinson, were a strong message that fighting will not be tolerated. But if they really want to end fighting for good, they need to automatically suspend anyone - without pay - who leaves the bullpen or bench during a fight, like the NBA and NHL. And a five or six-figure fine would be more appropriate considering the players' average annual salary is nearly $2 million.
Now that would take some real common sense.
