Footage from last week’s outta control melee between the Florida State League’s Daytona Tortugas and Jupiter Hammerheads made a few of the more highly trafficked sports blogs today, forcing FSL President Ken Carson to confess the incident was, “one of the ugliest things that I’ve ever seen and I’ve been around baseball for 40 years and hockey for 20.” From The Daytona Beach News-Journal’s Zach Dean :
The incident took place during the July 20 game against Jupiter after Tortugas first baseman Gavin LaValley was hit with a pitch with two outs in the ninth inning.
Tortugas manager Eli Marrero began jawing with the umpires after LaValley was hit and shouting could also be heard from Jupiter’s dugout. Hammerheads manager Randy Ready came out and Marrero eventually threw a punch at Ready, both benches cleared and several fights broke out across the diamond.
Making matters worse, the brawl took place on “Camp Day” at Jackie Robinson Park, with local summer camps and many elementary school age kids in attendance.
In addition to Marrero, five players, pitchers Brennan Bernardino and Keury Mella, catcher Garrett Boulware, infielder Ty Washington and outfielder Jonathan Reynoso received suspensions. The team is not required to reveal the length of player suspensions according to FSL rules.
“We don’t have to disclose that information, but anybody can figure it out,” Carson said of the amount of time a player is suspended.
“The one thing that I do is I don’t suspend everybody at once. The reason for that is the teams can’t go and play with 18 players or whatever it is. I’ll suspend one or two players at a time and then once their time is up I’ll suspend a few more.”