On March 22, 1989, Benches clear twice and six players are ejected as the Philadelphia Phillies and Pittsburgh Pirates get into a spring training brawl.
“It was sort of fun,” said manager Nick Leyva. “I didn’t see any good punches, but we had a few real good pileups. The only problem was we didn’t have a whole lot of guys on the trip and we were outmanned for that kind of stuff.” The trouble began when Don Carman knocked down the Pirates’ Bobby Bonilla with a high, inside pitch on an 0-1 count. Bonilla started walking to the mound, only to be stopped by Phillies catcher Tom Nieto as the benches and bullpens emptied. “Bonilla is a big guy who we want to pitch inside so he doesn’t extend those arms,” said Leyva. “Donnie just got it in a lot, and I guess Bonilla doesn’t like that too much.” No punches were thrown, but just as things were quieting down, the Phils’ Dickie Thon and Pittsburgh’s Barry Bonds started mixing it up, with Thon wrestling Bonds to the ground. Bonilla, Bonds and Thon were ejected, but things didn’t stay quiet for long. Pittsburgh manager Jim Leyland began arguing with the home-plate umpire, Bob Davidson’, who earlier had ejected the Phils’ Bob Dernier for arguing a ball-strike call. Leyland was arguing that Carman should also have been ejected. When the argument escalated, Leyland was thrown out. As he started to leave the field, Leyland exchanged words with the Phils’ pitching coach, Darold Knowles, and with Carman. Leyland then headed for the mound and the benches emptied once again. Later, Pittsburgh’s R.J. Reynolds was ejected for hollering at Davidson from the Pirates’ bench. “I wasn’t trying to hit anybody, but when Leyland started yelling at me, Ifinally said come on,” said Carman. Said Leyva: “Donnie isn’t a good guy to mess with. He works out every day with Gus Hoefling, and if he started throwing those leg kicks around, some guys would have started going down.” (Hoefling is the team’s strength and flexibility instructor.)
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