Remember last May when Carlos Zambrano beat the crap out of Michael Barrett in the Cubs’ dugout and two days later the Cubs started a hot streak that led them to the NL Central title?

Well, the Brewers tried to re-enact that late last season when Manager Ned Yost got into a fight with corpulent catcher Johnny Estrada.  It didn’t work.  But hey, why not try it again?  This time it was Prince Fielder shoving pitcher Manny Parra in the dugout in Cincinnati.  It took half a dozen Brewers to restrain the excitable Fielder who is a lap band away from 300 pounds.

There are a couple of reasons why this sissy push fight is more a sign of the unraveling (again) of the Brewers than a potential season turn arounder.  (Turn arounder?)

[Youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bWV4GqLLBQ]

First off, you can point to the fight between Z and Barrett all you want.  The thing that turned the season around was that after that Barrett rarely played, and eventually he was traded to San Diego.  The little maniac had worn out his welcome on the team, his on field blunders were piling up and in reality the Cubs changed a whole bunch of stuff.  But simple minded dopes like to point to one thing, so they either point to the fight or to Lou Piniella burying Doug Eddings’ shoes over by third base the day after.

Second, let’s say that one teammate beating the shit out of another actually works.  What Prince and Manny did doesn’t count.  When Carlos and Barrett fought they were face to face, and then they started it up again in the clubhouse, when the good stuff happened (hey, Barrett ended up having to go to the hospital.)  The Brewers’ fight was just a fat guy shoving a pitcher from behind and then being pulled away.  Honestly, there’s probably more violent dude on dude stuff happening in Jim Edmonds’ brownstone on a typical Tuesday than what the Fox Sports Ohio cameras caught last night.

Managers are always put in a difficult spot after these kinds of situations.  They can’t say what they want to say, which is usually “Honestly, I’d like to beat the shit out of about nine of these assholes, myself.”  So they end up having to tap dance around it.

As you might expect, Ned isn’t up to that kind of verbal subterfuge.

“It’s not a big deal.  For eight months a year, we’re a family. At times things happen, flare up, but it’s between the family. It’s in the family.

“It’s a little bit rude when your neighbors are fighting next door for you to go knock on the door and ask what happened. We handle it ourselves. It’s between us and it’s nobody’s business. But it wasn’t that big a deal.”

You know what that reminded me of?

Look, mister, there’s… two kinds of dumb, uh… guy that gets naked and runs out in the snow and barks at the moon, and, uh, guy who does the same thing in my living room. First one don’t matter, the second one you’re kinda forced to deal with.

I don’t know why Cletus drug your tired old bones in here, he musta owed you somethin’ fierce. Fact is, mister, you start screwin’ up this team, I’ll personally hide-strap your ass to a pine rail and send you up the Monon Line!

It is true that baseball players have fights in the clubhouse or in a bar a couple of times a year.  But most have the good sense to leave them there.  We know Zambrano and Barrett are knuckleheads.  Their clash was inevitable.  I always thought it would happen on the mound during a game, myself.

Prince is an All-Assclown team member, too.  He had his little meltdown in the ninth inning of the final game of the Cubs’ sweep in Milwaukee last week.  He popped up, didn’t bother to run, slammed his bat into the ground until he broke it and then screamed at the home plate ump until he finally got kicked out of the game.  It just all seemed so staged.  Just Prince’s way of proving to the fans that he really cared.  Whatever.

Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said in an interview last night that someone close to the dugout when it happened said that apparently Prince was mad that Manny was going to the clubhouse during the inning, because he was being pinch hit for.  Prince thought that Manny should have to sit in the dugout and watch the Brewers be unable to dig out of the hole his pitching had put them in.  Fair enough.

Personally, when Jason Marquis leaves a game after giving up six runs, I don’t want him in the dugout or in the clubhouse.  I want him trying to catch the Red Line…with his teeth.

The Cubs had excitement of their own.  Last night’s 2-0 loss (the Cubs certainly do enjoy following up eight run efforts by being shout out, don’t they?) will be remembered more for tornado warnings, bleacher evacuations (no, Al Yellon didn’t crap his pants…that we know of), lightning strikes and Lassie taking a one hopper off his nuts:

Oh, well, a one hopper off the groin is better than being two handed pimp slapped by a half-ton vegan, I suppose.