Brawl Breaks Out in MLB Clubhouse over Error in Previous Game
Baseball fights on the diamond are as old as the game itself.
But a baseball fight in the clubhouse among teammates? That’s not something you hear about every day — and it’s just what happened in the Seattle Mariners’ locker room.
There was a scuffle involving Mariners players before Tuesday’s game against the Baltimore Orioles. The altercation was between Dee Gordon and Jean Segura, and at least three other Mariners were needed to break it up.
Gordon has asked reporters to leave the clubhouse shortly before the fight broke out. The Seattle Times reports that obscenities could be heard from behind the closed doors and then the fight led to those doors being crashed open.
Cameron Maybin, Mike Zunino and Nick Vincent were the peacekeepers and tried to diffuse the situation. At that point it was unclear who the participants in the fight were, but sources later told The Times it was between Gordon and Segura and stemmed from an error in the previous game.
In Monday’s win vs. the Orioles, Gordon misplayed a routine fly ball in center field that led to a two-base error. The inning ended without further damage for Seattle, but Gordon was then removed from the field the following inning.
When asked about the skirmish, the common refrain from the Mariners was “what happens in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Robinson Cano said after Tuesday’s game. “What happens in here stays in here. Everybody’s good.”
Manager Scott Servais, a former player, said these types of things are commonplace and something good can often come out of it.
“I played for 11 years in the big leagues and it’s almost every year with every team I’ve been a part of,” Servais said. “Sometimes it brings teams together. Sometimes certain things hit a boiling point and you have to get things off your chest.”
The fire that the Mariners showed pregame didn’t spill over into the actual game as they lost on Tuesday to Baltimore 5-3. Segura and Gordon were both in the lineup, and the two combined to go 0-for-9.
This certainly isn’t the first clubhouse fight, and it isn’t even the first clubhouse fight between Mariners teammates.
In 1998, Hall of Famer Randy Johnson got into a locker room fracas with first baseman David Segui over something that had nothing to do with baseball. Johnson was irked that Segui was playing music too loudly in the clubhouse, and the two went at it.
No punches were thrown, but Segui ended up with a sprained wrist that caused him to miss time. Johnson would be traded two weeks later to the Houston Astros.
These types of fights seem to always happen to struggling teams, and the Mariners haven’t been playing their best ball as of late.
After posting a .598 winning percentage in the first half of the season, they’ve won at a .452 clip since the All-Star break. Seattle is nine games behind Houston in the AL West.
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