NEWSLETTER
Baseball isn’t exactly KNOWN for huge rumbles among the players, but they do happen from time to time. The benches-clearing brawl is a long-standing part of the game, and while it isn’t all that frequent, we know we’ve seen many.
But I gotta say, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of one taking place in the prospect-laden, developmentally-focused Arizona Fall League. It just happened:
Canaan Smith-Njigba and Josh Winckowski were at the center of an Arizona Fall League brawl this afternoon. @jnorris427 has more: https://t.co/ggRT3rHZIy pic.twitter.com/7R8xkfWMXY
— Baseball America (@BaseballAmerica) November 7, 2021
That’s Pirates prospect Canaan Smith-Njigba charging Red Sox prospect Josh Winckowski after he got hit high and tight. Apparently it had happened the game before, and Smith-Njigba thought that was enough of that.
— Phrake Photography (@phrakephoto) November 7, 2021
The crazy thing is that you could tell a lot of the players didn’t know what to do at first. They are teammates, yes, but these are teams comprised of a lot of very short-term relationships – they are guys that have come in from lots of different organizations around baseball. So you wouldn’t necessarily expect all of them to have that same quick gut instinct of wanting to really rumble for a teammate. It’s just kinda like … what is happening? I’m supposed to do something, aren’t I?
Even the umpire seemed uncertain of how aggressively to go about breaking up the fight. I’m sure you just don’t have much experience seeing an actual fight in an AFL game. It’s crazy.
