In the sweltering sun of southern Texas, a man’s temper can run as hot as the atmosphere around him. When that man is a minor league baseball player, and he has reason to unleash that temper, sometimes it doesn’t matter how tenuous the reason. Take the above brawl, between the Frisco Roughriders and the Corpus Christi Hooks, for example.
Frisco pitcher Yohander Mendez pumped a fastball into Corpus Christi DH Danry Vasquez that was quick, sure, but impossible to say if it was intentional. What’s more, it was only the second inning — hardly enough time to build up a grudge — and yet there went Vasquez, charging the mound with zero hesitation and prompting both benches and bullpens to clear and get in on the scrum. The Corpus Christi Caller reports that no one could even determine why Vasquez charged.
As far as brawls go, this was a pretty big one, although it starts inauspiciously enough. Mendez won no special marks on the fight card for first standing stock still, then dodging away and chucking his glove at Vasquez, but there were scrums galore afterwards. It’s important to remember as the fight drags on that there was no real reason for it to happen at all. Yet all those minor leaguers were more than happy to throw down. Just another hot summer day in Texas.
(Via MiLB.com)
