Nothing sweeps sportswriters into a frenzy like a good brawl. There are some brawls, of course, that are more disconcerting than others, such as the one at Madison Square Garden last week, or the one in Auburn Hills a couple years back. Say, I just mentioned two basketball ones. What gives? Well, let’s take a look at what leagues have the most and least despicable brawls and why.
NHL: In hockey, as any hockey fan knows, fights are fought without any emotional input. The fights are purely strategic, with the winner hoping to gain momentum for his team. Essentially, they are boxing matches on ice. There is absolutely no malice aforethought. When emotion is brought into the mix, such as frustrated scuffles at the net, or a retaliatory blindside punch, like Scott Nichol laid Jaro Svoboda out with the other night in Buffalo, the players on ice know to restrain the combatants, the fans boo culprits, and the league is one of the swiftest to condemn its athletes with suspensions. There isn’t a thing that can be found that is truly reprehensible about hockey fights.
MLB: Slightly up the ladder on disgusting sporting acts are major league baseball brawls. The fights tend to be a lot of clutching and grabbing with no punches thrown usually. Again, they are the product of strategy, albeit strategy gone wrong, essentially coming to be after a pitch or two sneaks too far inside. The hit batsman is generally the only one who gets really riled up, and for the most part, combatants aren’t really combatants at all. More often than not, they are pulling away the opposing team, trying to keep the fights from spreading. Again, it’s one of those situations where true followers of the game know when a brawl gets out of hand, and those involve are dealt with accordingly.
NFL: First off, the majority of professional football players are truly insane, so that doesn’t help. Second, the only way for a fight to make a difference, what with the pads, is to realy go hard after someone, like stomping them in the face with your cleats. The game is violence, so when a fight breaks out, it is noticed because it is more violent. Even worse, these fights are bred on emotion, not strategy, so players are liable to do anything. The saving grace is that these rumbles are well removed from the attending public.
NBA: Like the NFL, these melees are born of emotion or frustration, instantly making them more dangerous, as you are fighting on behalf of yourself, more than the team you play for. The players don’t wear pads, so that makes the fights less prone to serious injury from other players. Where the danger lies, however, is in the fact that there is nothing to seperate the fans from the players. Almost all fights are bound to spill into the fans if they get even remotely wild. That is why there should be outrage when a brawl erupts in an NBA game. The fact that these athletes are demonstrating an element of their personality is secondary (as in football, as well as those brash couple in hockey and baseball), but still important to the story.
As for why ESPN seems to be on Carmelo Anthony more than Scott Nichol for their respective sucker punches, well, had you even heard of Scott Nichol OR watched a hockey game on ESPN lately? – Ryan
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