After Brawl, Dodgers Not So Sure What Hit Them

The bell that signaled the end of Round One of the cruiserweight fight between the Dodgers’ Gary Sheffield and the Pirates’ Jason Kendall was also an alarm in the Pittsburgh dugout Sunday night.

At the time, the Pirates had only two hits through a somnambulent six innings and had scored only one run in almost 48 hours. Then Kendall lit a fire under them with a couple of right hands to the Sheffield’s head after bracing the Dodger baserunner in a World Championship Wrestling-approved headlock.

At game’s end, Pittsburgh had pulled out a 6-4 victory before 38,865 at Dodger Stadium and had prevented a Dodger sweep of the three-game series.

Not that Kendall or Sheffield were around to see it.

“Their ejections were because they were the combatants,” said Jerry Crawford, the umpires’ crew chief.

“It was a baseball fight.”

And not all that much of one, as baseball fights go, but it provided a turning point in a series that the Dodgers had dominated.

To reconstruct:

The Dodgers held a 4-1 lead, largely courtesy of Sheffield’s two-run home run in the first inning and his run-scoring single in the fifth. Sheffield was on third base and pinch-runner Roger Cedeno on first.

Pirate reliever Mike Williams had twice faked pickoff throws to third and first bases, and on the third fake Cedeno took off, seizing an opportunity where there was none.

Williams stepped off the rubber and got Cedeno in a rundown, whereupon Sheffield decided an opportunity to score existed.

It didn’t.

First baseman Kevin Young threw to Kendall, who was waiting at the plate when Sheffield arrived, opting to try to dodge the tag rather than bowl Kendall over.

What happened next is subject to interpretation.

“He came in and hit me in the head,” said Kendall, who would have preferred not to say anything at all. “I thought it was a weak play. If you’re going to run me over, run me over. I respect that. But he came by and slapped me on the back of the head.

“I said a couple of words and he heard them. [Plate umpire Tom] Hallion got in front of us, and the next thing I knew all hell broke loose.”

Said Crawford, speaking for the umpires: “Kendall objected to the way Sheffield came in, and Sheffield then objected to what Kendall said.”

Which was?

“Baseball words,” Crawford said, smiling.

Sheffield took his objection to Kendall, who started throwing right hands. No one would admit that Sheffield’s injury was punch-related--code of the game, you know--and Sheffield wasn’t around to speak for himself, having departed for UCLA Medical Center with a small cut in his left eyelid that trainer Charlie Strasser said was not serious but worthy of a precautionary look by a doctor.

Both bullpens emptied and sides were chosen, with the normal pushing and shoving inherent in a baseball fight, save for Raul Mondesi, who got in a punch on Kendall--apparently unseen by the umpires--before being pulled away.

What happens from here is up to National League President Leonard Coleman, who will receive reports from the umpires today and, probably, a tape from the Pirates as soon as it can be sent to New York before he decides if additional punishment is warranted.

More immediate retribution was meted out by the Pirates, who closed to within 4-3 in the seventh inning on Al Martin’s two-run homer off Dave Mlicki, who had been sailing to that point.

“Everybody wants to say that the fight caused it, but I was feeling good and just made a mistake to Young [who singled] and another one to Martin,” Mlicki said.

It was left for the Dodger bullpen and infield to complete the carnage.

In the eighth inning, Turner Ward scored the tying run when Kendall’s replacement, Keith Osik, broke up a potential bases-loaded double play by knocking Dodger shortstop Wilton Guerrero in the direction of left field. Then Manny Martinez scored what became the winning run on third baseman Adrian Beltre’s error.

A ninth-inning run scored on Guerrero’s error.