In the 32 games in which the benches cleared, there were a grand total of five punches thrown that were clearly caught on camera. And only one of those punches connected.<\/p>\n

How times change. Then again, the Ryan-Ventura fisticuffs happened pre-social media (i.e. no immediate, screaming outrage) so maybe that\u2019s why it\u2019s a collectively fun memory for everyone on Planet Earth excepting the current White Sox manager.<\/p>\n

The WSJ spoke with Mike Bordick, a longtime shortstop who was involved in the infamous Yankees-Orioles brawl in 1998. Bordick offered up a interesting opinion why fights were more-heated in previous decades:<\/p>\n

Bordick said the pervasiveness of steroids at that time may have made players more prone to rage. By contrast, he said players today simply don\u2019t want to hurt themselves in a fight. \u201cI think the game has\u2014I don\u2019t want to say softened\u2014but there\u2019s just so much money involved and the risk of injury is so substantial,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Unless you\u2019re inside a Major League dugout or clubhouse it\u2019s probably impossible to say what any of this fighting \u2014 well running out of the dugout and standing around like a wannabe tough guy \u2014 actually accomplishes, aside from suspensions in Baseball. Technically speaking, had Chris Sale charged into the Royals clubhouse, as reported earlier this year, to fight Yordano Ventura those potential punches wouldn\u2019t have counted in the WSJ study about Baseball.<\/p>\n

This quote from Orioles reliever Darren O\u2019Day basically sums up the state of baseball \u201cbrawls\u201d in 2015:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been out on the field during a heated exchange between two other guys and I\u2019m out there talking to my buddy who I played with the year before,\u201d O\u2019Day said. \u201cLike, \u2018Hey man, let\u2019s just hug it out, me and you, if this thing goes south.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyways, in closing I\u2019ll just go ahead and assume that Robert Fick was unavailable for comment for this story about baseball.<\/p>\n