Virtual battle is turning into actual combat. And it’s happening too often.

Rivalries and the emotion they generate are great for sports fans and franchises. They excite us and make us feel like we are part of the competition on the field. But when things go haywire, violence can be quick to erupt.

Enough is enough.

When there are as many as five fights during a single Maineiacs’ hockey game, you can point to youthful exuberance as newly professional players learn the ice. After all, most of these players are still just kids.

But when a 72-year-old coach goes “cowboy” on a professional baseball player less than half his age – even after being incited – and gets thrown to the ground, then things have gone too far.

Emotions got the better of the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees Saturday night. Boston ace Pedro Martinez hit New York right fielder Karim Garcia with a bean ball. It barely missed the player’s head and brushed harmlessly off his shoulder. The “unwritten rules” of baseball demanded retaliation. What followed was much posturing, many pronouncements and a whole lot of angry finger pointing and name calling from both dugouts.

In the next inning, things broke loose, and Yankee coach Don Zimmer made like the old bull he is and charged Martinez. He was promptly dispatched to the ground. Reality, then, rained down on the players on both sides, as they rushed over to check on Zimmer.

Later in the game, two New York pitchers and a member of the Boston grounds crew got into a altercation of their own.

What should have been a great contest between Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez became a bar brawl. The whole affair was better suited to a rerun of the Jerry Springer show than a playoff showdown on national television between two of the most storied franchises in professional sports.

Sometimes, we treat sports and the success of our favorite teams like matters of life and death. They are not. Not for the players and not for the fans.

As much as we appreciate a loud crowd and understand how important emotion is to sports, what message do we send when grown men like Don Zimmer launch a suicide charge toward an opposing player?

And what of Pedro? This terrible tale will be inserted into the biography of one of this generation’s greatest pitchers. Beating up an old man, even if he is a Yankee, is nothing to be proud of. Only when his part in the history of baseball is written will we know if his legacy has been diminished.

Hopefully, the Red Sox can regain their composure and advance to the World Series. Legions of dedicated fans in the Red Sox Nation deserve nothing less. But win or lose, this year’s games will be remembered more for the ugly melee than the quality of the play.
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