Good Thing or Bad Thing? Only Six Players Were Suspended Following the Royals-White Sox Brawl

In case you missed it: A brawl broke out between the Kansas City Royals and Chicago White Sox On Thursday…

The fallout of the fight was as follows:

• Yordano Venutra: Suspended 7 Games
• Edinson Volquez: Suspended 5 Games
• Chris Sale: Suspended 5 Games
• Jeff Samardzija: Suspended 5 Games
• Lorenzo Cain: Suspended 2 Games
• Kelvin Hererra: Suspended 2 Games

This isn’t the only scuffle that the Royals (and more specifically: Yordano Ventura) have instigated recently.

In each ofVenutra’s last three starts, he’s been in an incident with an opposing player which ultimately caused the benches to clear.

On April 12: he spat venom towards Los Angeles Angels superstar Mike Trout, causing Angels and Royals players to storm the field.

On April 18th: He drilled the Oakland Athletics’ Brett Lawrie with a pitch, as the Royals and the A’s booked another chapter in their never-ending feud…

And obviously, Ventura poured gasoline on the fire vs. the White Sox with this…

So, here we are…

A measly seven-game suspension for Ventura — which in retrospect: seems like a lot, but, remember that starting pitchers sit out four games between starts anyways, so, all this does is push his next outing back by two whole games. Wow, so harsh! He definitely learned his lesson and will be afraid to plunk someone again!

Why was the punishment so soft? Did the MLB do this on purpose? Are they … in a sense … encouraging this type of behavior?

I’m torn what to think here because baseball is in purgatory right now. The games are too long, it gets zero coverage, and unless your team is “in the race” — I feel like the average baseball fan loses interest, because it doesn’t have the same widespread appeal it had during “The Steroid Era”. Just my opinion, though…

Thus, my question: Are brawls good for the game? Do they inject passion back into the fans of a sport that has been bleeding it (generally-speaking) for years? Or, is this just an example of a thug intruding on the tradition of “America’s Past Time”, and implementing his own rogue agenda? Should we root for this? Or discourage it?

Discuss below…