Collision at Homeplate Triggers Bench-Clearing Basebrawl Down Under

The Dodgers and Diamondbacks open the 2014 Major League Baseball season on March 22 at the famous Sydney Cricket Ground in Australia. The National League West rivals don’t exactly like each other very much, participating in the best baseball brawl of 2013 that included haymakers and managers Don Mattingly and Kirk Gibson squarely in the thick of it. Hostilities increased in September when the Dodgers had the sheer audacity to celebrate clinching the West by partying in the sacred waters of the Chase Field pool, which apparently broke one of baseball’s 15,000 unwritten rules.

Anyways, here’s a video from Brisbane Bandits vs Sydney Blue Sox game in late December that features the Aussie version of the basebrawl. This one was triggered by what the announcers call “hard baseball” via a collision at home plate — a play which will be outlawed in MLB for 2014. The poor catcher in this clip gets both trucked by the runner and then cold-cocked by a guy running out of the dugout.

So yeah, don’t get any idea Dodgers or D’backs.