Poking the bear

(Neil Leifer photo)

In the midst of being swept in a weekend series on City Island 31 years ago today, the Class AA London Tigers and relief pitcher Brian Warren unwisely ignite a bench-clearing brawl when Warren – after giving up two long homers to Harrisburg's Cliff Floyd and Oreste Marrero in the seventh inning – throws his next pitch at the head of Mike Hardge.

The Senators – the Montreal Expos’ prized Class AA affiliate just a week removed from embarrassing the Tigers in an equally testy series in Ontario – respond by pummeling anybody wearing a London uniform in what turns out to be a ridiculously one-sided fight.

Afterward, London’s players make note to never ever again mess with the Senators – especially pitcher Joey Eischen, as well as Harrisburg outfielders Glenn Murray, Curtis Pride and Tyrone Woods.

At one point, Woods traps four Tigers by the backstop while Eischen corners two other London players, who lose 15 of their 20 games that season against a prospect-loaded Harrisburg team that rolls to the 1993 Eastern League title.

As for Murray and Pride, they, ahem, stress to London manager Tom Runnells as to why he should not get in the middle of the skirmish by tackling him to the ground with a Sunday afternoon crowd of 3,243 looking on.

“I never encourage my players to fight, ever,” Senators manager Jim Tracy says years later in an interview for the book, The Class of ’93. “We’re not going to strike the first blow. That’s not the way I managed teams. But, in my mind, if someone takes a potshot at us, we will respond.

“So, when Mike Hardge took a moment (after Warren’s pitch), looked down at me in the third base coach’s box and we make eye contact. And, I said, right out loud, ‘What the hell are you waiting for?’ ”

Without needing to hear another word from Tracy, Hardge charges the mound and his teammates storm the field. Twelve minutes later, the most lopsided baseball fight in the history of City Island – a history that dates to 1890 – is over.

Among the faces in the crowd witnessing the fisticuffs is former Pittsburgh Pirates third baseman Bill Madlock, the often-feisty, four-time National League batting champion who this day is at Harrisburg’s RiverSide Stadium for a postgame charity event.

“I don’t know what those London boys were thinking,” Madlock says after the game. “Those guys are just babies compared to Harrisburg.”