2ND DARKEST DAY: The Baseball Brawl of Shame
AUGUST 12, 1984
THE DAY OF SHAME
Like the Hatfields and McCoys, no one is really quite sure what caused the feud between the Atlanta Braves and San Diego Padres. Some pointed a finger at Alan Wiggins, the Padres’ electric leadoff man who had a pair of bunt singles the previous – albeit a tight 4-2 win.
San Diego pundits believed it was petty jealousy on the part of the Braves, who were plunging in the standings while the Padres were 9 1-2 games ahead of everyone and well on their way to a division championship. The Sunday series finale was delayed 90 minutes because of rain and Fulton County Stadium was a quagmire. On the plus side, fans had an extra 90 minutes to drink beer and generally be rowdy as they pleased. They were also allowed to move down into the reserved seats as there were considerably less than the announced attendance of 23,912 when Pasual Perez finally threw the first pitch.
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That pitch nailed Wiggins in the lower back. He points and yells at Perez on his way to first and his teammates gather on the grass in front of their dugout. But Tony Gwynn grounded into a double play and Perez (who would go on to allow two more baserunners in the inning) escaped.
Perez had hit only two batters in his previous 135 innings. The tone for the day was set.
The Braves jumped ahead 2-0 on a Claudell Washington homer, so Perez came to the plate for the first time in the second inning with a man on and one out. Crusty, ill-tempered (on his good days) Ed Whitson was on the mound for the Padres, and he took aim at Perez on his first pitch. Perez, who was looking out, bailed and a wild pitch ensued. Perez wielded his bat like a weapon as catcher Terry Kennedy took steps towards him. Both benches emptied but no one was ejected. Plate umpire Steve Rippley warned both benches any further action would lead to ejections.
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Perez batted again in the fourth. Whitson threw three straight inside fastballs, missing each time. But the third earned Whitson his ejection, and along with it, manager Dick Williams. Greg Booker came on and gave up two runs, but was still in the game when Perez batted again in the sixth. Booker took aim at Perez, missed, and would be the next Padre ejected, along with acting manager Ozzie Virgil out of the game.
The game’s first actual skirmish ensued, but no punches were thrown and no one else was ejected.
Meanwhile, Perez was pitching a gem, leading 5-0 when Graig Nettles homered for the Padres leading off the seventh and exchanged glares with Perez as he circled the bases.
Perez would bat one final time, in the eighth. Craig Lefferts was on for the Padres and he did not miss.
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Both benches cleared at full speed and despite Steve Garvey trying to deter the bums rush towards the mound and Lefferts – who was already leaving the field – a major pileup occurred with fists swinging. Perez, seeing that the Padres were headed towards him en masse, actually took off towards the Braves dugout.
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Ten minutes after the brawl started, the Padres’ Champ Summers, a grizzled military veteran, spotted Perez in the dugout and headed his way. But there to meet him was Bob Horner, his hand in a cast. Horner had hurried down from the press box to pull on his uniform and join his teammates. Joining him was pitcher Rick Camp and a fan from the stands, who jointly tackled Summers.
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As the Braves and Summers clashed near the stands, fans threw beer and more than one jumped down onto the field to throw punches themselves. Players in the main skirmish saw this and everything shifted over by the Braves dugout.
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When the umpires finally restored order, they ejected Lefferts, acting manager Jack Krol, Summers, Camp, the Padres’ Bobby Brown and the Braves’ Gerald Perry – Brown and Perry locked up in a highly visible part of the brawl. Braves manager Joe Torre also elected to replace Perez with a pinch-runner; he would be fined but not ejected.
Five fans were arrested handcuffed on the field and led away.
Crew chief John McSherry took Torre aside.
“This ends it,” he said. “One of their players was hit. One of yours was hit. I don’t want any more of it.”
But then came the ninth inning.
Replacing Perez on the mound was top reliever Donnie Moore. Leading off was Nettles, and he promptly took a fastball off his ass to set off one more brawl than anyone expected or new how to deal with.
“I didn’t care who was batting,” Moore said. “I was going to throw at somebody. I have to protect our hitters.”
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Nettles charged the mound but was spun around by Moore and tackled by Chris Chambliss. Big Padres reliever Goose Gossage pursues Moore and the fight intensifies. Gerald Perry sucker punches the Padres’ Tim Flannery. Kurt Bevacqua climbs on top of the dugout and challenged a fan who threw beer at him. A shirtless Whitson emerged from the clubhouse brandishing a bat, but was restrained from joining Bevacqua in the stands.
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Gene Garber struggled to get the final out, but the Braves came away with a 5-3 win. On the way off the field, another Braves fan threw a beer at Kurt Bevacqua, and security guards had to restrain him after he went into the stands.
“That was the most I’ve been on the field all year,” the veteran utilityman quipped..
The aftermath of the ugliness was not pretty, either.
Crew chief John McSherry, who found himself on the ground trying to quell one skirmish, was beside himself when he called his boss, Blake Cullen, NL umpire supervisor.
“John is usually a pretty placid man,” Cullen told San Diego writer Phil Collier. “He was second guessing himself for not forfeiting the game to the Braves. He couldn’t understand why the Padres kept throwing at Perez.”
“It was the worst thing I have ever seen in my life,” McSherry said in a later interview. “It was pathetic. It took baseball down 50 years. … The only alternative we had was to forfeit the game, but I would have had to do it to the Braves because they started the second fight, and they were obviously not responsible for this mess.
“It was a miracle somebody didn’t get seriously hurt,” he added. “We were very lucky.”
Cullen was less sympathetic to the Braves. His strongest punishments were for those who participated in the ninth inning fight despite being ejected from the game earlier. Padres general manager Jack McKeon, who accused McSherry’s crew with losing control of the game, cited Gerald Perry and Steve Bedrosian in particular. Perry got into a particularly nasty one-on-one with Padres outfielder Bobby Brown.
“The guy who lost control was in their dugout (Williams). Joe Torre handled himself excellently, better than we could have asked for,” McSherry responded. “We threw out players, managers and coaches. We cleared the benches in the last inning. This was the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever seen.”
National League president Chub Feeney had his hands full, but he dropped the hammer on both teams. Padres manager Dick Williams was suspended for 10 days and fined $10,000. Four Braves, including manager Joe Torre, suffered three-game suspensions, as did Champ Summers.
“Perez is a head-hunter. There’s no question we went after him,” Williams said later. “I’m responsible. I’ll accept the penalty, but I think it’s pretty steep.”
Nine Padres were fined, including the three pitchers who threw at Perez, along with two of their coaches. Six Braves suffered fines as well. Perez’s fine was $300.
Torre called Williams “an idiot” and “gutless,” then doubled down: “He should be suspended for the rest of the season. Those were Hitler-like tactics.”
Catcher Terry Kennedy summed it up: “It would’ve been a lot better if we’d just hit Perez his first time up. We missed him, three times. It got ridiculous; it’s bad to have kids watch something like this.”
