A night of baseball turned into "basebrawl" Tuesday night at Franklin Covey Field between the Salt Lake Stingers and the Iowa Cubs.
Tension between the two teams actually started Monday night when two Salt Lake batters were hit by pitches and Cubs designated hitter Julio Zuleta stood and admired a monstrous home run that he hit in the sixth inning. But things grew uglier and a lot more violent in Iowa's 17-1 win Tuesday.
The brawl began when Zuleta was nailed by a pitch from Brendan Donnelly with the Cubs leading the Stingers 15-1 in the top of the ninth. Zuleta then threw his helmet at Donnelly, rushed the mound and started throwing punches. The scene looked like a typical baseball skirmish with players being held back and various instances of pushing and shoving.
But that's when things got out of control.
Zuleta restarted the brawl when he came out of the Cubs' dugout looking for Donnelly and found him with a couple of haymakers. Fights broke out all over the infield, and a few of Iowa's players chased Stingers pitcher Elvin Nina back to the dugout. The situation died down when the Stingers coaching staff and the umpires got the more aggressive players — including a member of the Cubs' coaching staff who was throwing punches and kicks at the Stingers players — away from everyone else. A couple of uniformed police officers also went down to the infield to restore order.
"Those are always ugly," said Stingers manager Mike Brumley. "That was one of the more violent ones I've seen in my 20 years of baseball. There were a lot of frustrated guys and they got out of control."
Ten players were kicked out of the game. After a 40-minute delay, the game resumed and the Cubs added two more runs.
Brumley said Tuesday's fight was a sign of the times with today's ballplayers.
"Guys get so sensitive," he said. "If somebody gets pitched inside or hit accidentally they want to retaliate. Before, sometimes a batter would get hit after a home run. It was just accepted. Now it's a tense time."
Brumley said his team's frustration had a
lot to do with losing to the Cubs by a combined 24 runs the last two nights. The two teams have developed a fierce rivalry. The Cubs took the pennant away from the Stingers on the last day of the 2001 season, and it looks like they will battle for the division title again this season. The first-place Stingers lead the Cubs by 2 1/2 games, and they will play each other 12 more times this season.
Injuries are not being kind to the Stingers right now in their race with the Cubs. Starting pitchers Mickey Callaway and Jason Stephens are on the disabled list. Brumley has been forced to use his relievers as starters. Rich Kelley started against Iowa on Tuesday and gave up seven runs in three innings.
"He's had great numbers," Brumley said. "We've just really taxed our bullpen."
Kelley, who is pitching for his 16th team in 12 seasons of minor league baseball, had a 2.94 earned run average before Tuesday's game. He is used to coming out of the bullpen, as Tuesday's start was only his third in 20 appearances this season.
The Stingers have Wednesday off before playing 11 road games in 12 days. Brumley said he hopes his team can play .500 ball while waiting for his starting pitchers to get healthy.
"The off day is welcome," Brumley said. "Hopefully sometime we'll get back to having five bona-fide starters. We've got some problems right now health-wise."
BEE LINES: Attendance was 5,076, but not many were around to see the ninth-inning brawl . . . Rick Short extended his hit streak to 11 games, tying his longest of the season . . . Salt Lake got its lone run from a home run by Larry Barnes — Zuleta tormented the Stingers pitching staff in the last two games with four home runs and seven RBIs — Iowa returns to town for a four-game series June 22-25.
E-MAIL: aaragon@desnews.com