Don’t Mess with Nyjer Morgan

Fighting in organized sports is generally frowned upon. When football turns to blows the players are described as barbarians, out of control monsters with little or no self control. When basketball teams slug it out they’re deemed thugs and hoodlums. But Wednesday night’s Nationals-Marlins game included one of baseball’s most time-honored traditions, the bench clearing brawl.

Fighting holds a special place in baseball, a moral gray area that while officially outlawed is still accepted as an unspoken part of the game. Sometimes a scrap can be good for team chemistry, a team-building exercise spilling the enemy’s blood. In other sports players can physically confront each other through the course of play while boxing out for rebounds or making tackles. In baseball there is rarely such confrontation although the same agitation exists. Eventually it becomes too much and rather than a flagrant foul or late hit a player will launch an all-out assault. A bench-clearing baseball brawl is spontaneous, one player provoked to the point of attack and his team following into battle. Players, coaches, and fans know that at the highest level of competition this is sometimes unavoidable. That man pushed over the edge on Wednesday was Washington Nationals outfielder Nyjer Morgan.

The Marlins were eager for Morgan’s blood after the previous game, when he separated catcher Brett Hayes’s shoulder on a hard, but clean, play at home. Yes there was a mighty collision, but it was in extra innings and Hayes was blocking the plate. Unfortunately, he was hurt in the process and the Marlins expected Morgan to pay.

Nyjer Morgan had been having some temper issues going into Wednesday’s game. He was playing while his suspension was on appeal for pegging a fan in the face with a ball on August 25th. Last Saturday after being dropped to 8th in the lineup, Morgan intentionally ran into Cardinals catcher Bryan Anderson when there was no play at the plate. Then there was the collision with Hayes. The scrappy, outsized Morgan laid everything he had into Hayes, enough to separate his shoulder, and yet he still didn’t score the run. Being the competitor that he is, I’m sure this didn’t sit well with Mr. Morgan.

That’s because Nyjer Morgan didn’t grow up dedicating his every waking minute to playing baseball, he spent a good chunk of his youth playing the one sport that actually encourages fighting, hockey. He fell in love with the game watching the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary and eventually talked his parents into letting him play. If he wasn’t tough enough already, being a skinny African American kid playing a rough sport almost entirely dominated by Caucasians sure did the trick. Morgan eventually made it to the low Canadian minors, playing for the Regina Pats of the Western Canadian Hockey League, a league with a reputation for toughness in a sport full of it. It was here in the rural Canadian prairie that before giving up hockey for baseball Nyjer Morgan was solidified as one tough s.o.b.

So Morgan stood fearlessly in the batter’s box Wednesday night, knowing retribution was likely coming for payback from the night before. He wore the first plunking without incident and trotted down to first. Undeterred, he then stole second and third base, sliding in hard head-first both times. Some people have criticized this as being unnecessary because at that point the Nationals were already down 11 runs, 14 to 3. But this is precisely the time when a player must show that he is still in the game, that he will not sit back idly while getting thrown at and his team gets dominated. Nyjer Morgan didn’t care what the score was. He was pissed and he showed the Marlins he would not be taken lightly.

Tension continued to escalate and by Morgan’s next at-bat it would reach its breaking point. Unhappy with Morgan’s antagonistic base-running, pitcher Chris Volstad let him know his feelings with a fastball that was so far inside it went behind Morgan’s back. Enough was enough and Morgan charged head-on at Volstad, all 6’8”, 230 lbs of him. The barely-six-foot Nyjer Morgan came on with a hockey player’s fearlessness. His path was direct and his first swing was a stretching haymaker that made it to Volstad’s neck. Unfortunately for Morgan that was the only punch he was able to throw as the other Marlins quickly jumped in to help their pitcher and first baseman Gaby Sanchez laid him out with a Hulk Hogan-approved clothesline.

The Nats bench was quick to join in the melee. The first person to Morgan’s aide was actually third base coach Pat Listach and that goes a long way in understanding where the bench-clearing brawl’s place in baseball stands. So as the dust settled and order began to be restored, Nyjer Morgan was escorted not to the penalty box but the clubhouse. And he looked like he couldn’t have been any happier about it. He threw his hands triumphantly in the air, his torn jersey hanging half-open. Morgan screamed exultantly and on my high-def big screen I could clearly make out the words “fuck yeah” being taunted towards the booing Marlins crowd. Some think Morgan crossed the line by continuing to hoot and holler even after the fighting was finished. I think this just solidifies Nyjer Morgan as one bad mamma-jamma who backs down from nobody, somebody I never wanna mess with.
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Brett Phelps is a regular writer for The Golden Sombrero.