Provocation
When you are a professional athlete – even a baseball player (they’re more athletic than they often appear) – you have an obligation to conduct yourself with non-athletes with physical restraint. You are likely to be stronger, and unless your sport is boxing, fighting isn’t what you’re employed to do anyway. If anything marred the post-season this year, it was the conduct of the Yankees and Red Sox in the playoffs. Beanings are “part of baseball” (fatuous – there’s no need to throw at anyone’s head), but brawling with the grounds crew? It’s only right that the police charge Jeff Nelson and Karim Garcia. They’re not children that some taunts from a guy with a rake should send them into such a fury.