In thirteen years playing baseball and three years coaching, I never experienced a fight on or off the field. Oh sure, we had our share of batters being hit by pitches and players becoming angry, but nothing serious. Had I ever experienced a fight of some sort, even a small one, I might have been better prepared for what happened that summer evening in 2005 – the evening I was introduced to Softball Fight Club.

The summer after my high school teaching and coaching career came to a close, I volunteered to be my dad’s assistant coach on a girl’s fast-pitch softball team for ages 15 to 18. Both of my sisters were on the team, and this was to be the last time they would be playing together before the oldest went off to college.

Naturally, thanks in large part to my awesome coaching ability, we were the best team in the league. However, there was one other elite team in the league that played in another town, a team we had yet to play. It was a team that physically scared the other teams in our league, especially in games played in that team’s town. The players on this team were aggressive and intense, and the parents and fans of this team were loud and obnoxious. They would taunt the other teams and yell at the umpires. No one felt safe when they played them. Why this team in a completely different town was allowed to be a part of our league was a mystery to many.

Mid-way through the season, the time came for our team to play the team in the next town. The game was in their town and at night. A severe thunderstorm was predicted. And I’m pretty sure I saw numerous black cats running under ladders on the way to the game.

It was a 4-4 game in the top of the third inning when things went haywire. We were batting, and our lead-off hitter grounded a ball to the shortstop. The shortstop’s throw was wide and into the runner, so the first baseman had to come off the bag and tag the runner as she came down the line. It was a hard – but clean – tag to our player’s head that knocked her to the ground.

To say our player, the runner, overreacted would be a huge understatement.

From the ground, she took off her helmet and clubbed the first baseman in the head with it. I believe an obscenity was also uttered. Needless to say, the other team’s first baseman did not respond kindly to this assault.

More obscenities were uttered as the first baseman did her best Lord of the Dance impression on our player’s torso. As the first base coach, I was the closest to the fight so I swooped in and separated the two. I used the only thing I had handy, my body, as a shield between my player and the four or five opposing players who were now there ready to do some butt kickin’.

Two things prevented this from being a riot: The other team’s coaches blocked any of their fans or players on the bench from running onto the field to join the circus, and my dad was somehow able to fend off the five or six large men from our fan base who were trying to run onto to the field as well. Since I was able to break up the fight (none of the girls dared mess with my awesome kung-fu skills) in a somewhat timely manner, the prevention of additional players and fans running onto the field kept a really bad event from turning into the kind of thing you would hear about on the nightly news.

Of course, our player, the one who had gotten her butt kicked, did her best to get all of us lynched in the parking lot by continuing to yell obscenities at the other team. She even got a few of our other players to join in.

Not wanting to die that night, I did what any man would do in that situation.

“Hey…is that Bob Saget,” I yelled.

Okay, that last part isn’t true. But the rest is 100% real. I had the bruises to prove it.