Conflict is never an enjoyable moment.
Watching it during a sporting event is awful, especially when someone could be seriously injured.
We are in a time when lashing out at someone on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook seems appropriate, it’s really not.
It’s fine to stand up for your convictions, but name-calling and other forms of attacking people needs to stop.
After the recent melee between Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers, a logical question is where do we go from here?
Over the next few days, the social media universe is likely going to reach a level discussing the fight that rivals our national political environment.
It’s easy to assume that the National Football League will suspend Cleveland’s Myles Garrett for his part. My take is to make it indefinite, which would at least be for the rest of the season. At that point, his possible return could be discussed before next year.
Unfortunately, Garrett slugging Pittsburgh quarterback Mason Rudolph with a helmet will not be the last ugly sports incident, but the aftermath is a concern.
We need to learn from the past and hope that maybe Garrett, Rudolph and all of us can come to terms with the situation.
It can be done.
This incident on the football field, brings back memories of one of the worst moments in the history of baseball.
Bitter rivals are a part of sports and the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers have a long history of not getting along.
Back in 1965, Los Angeles and San Francisco were in a heated pennant race when Giants pitcher Juan Marichal hit Dodgers catcher John Roseboro in the head with a bat.
Both teams had been warned about throwing at hitters and Sandy Koufax was on the mound for the Dodgers when Roseboro threw the ball back to him after a pitch. Marichal, who was batting, was hit by the ball as Roseboro was returning the ball to his pitcher.
Needless to say, the battle was on and in the end Roseboro would need 14 stitches.
On Aug. 23, a wire service article the following day in the Milwaukee Journal had a quote from Roseboro about his throw back to Koufax hitting Marichal.
“That could be. It might have come close to him, but I didn’t think it did. Nothing happened before he started hitting with his bat. I didn’t say anything to him, but I’m not a great fan of his. Put it this way – we’re not friendly.”
Marichal would be suspended and Roseboro missed time as he recovered. The Dodgers would go on to beat the Minnesota Twins in the World Series.
In his final season of a 16-year career, Marichal would pitch in two games for the Dodgers in 1975.
However, the life lesson would happen in 1982 when Marichal and Roseboro would meet at an old-timers game at Dodger Stadium.
One year after they were reunited on the field, Marichal was finally inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Many felt as if his support for enshrinement was hurt by the incident despite being one of the greatest pitchers of the 1960s.
Overtime, the two men became friends and Roseboro even traveled to visit Marichal in the Dominican Republic.
Writer Kevin Stone used a quote in a story from Roseboro on ESPN.com in 2015. Check that article out here.
“There were no hard feelings on my part, and I thought if that was made public, people would believe that this was really over with,” Roseboro told the L.A. Times in 1990. “So I saw him at a Dodger old-timers’ game and we posed for pictures together and I actually visited him in the Dominican. The next year, he was in the Hall of Fame.”
According to Stone, Marichal spoke at Roseboro’s funeral and served as a pallbearer in 2002.
It really can be done.