Chicago Cubs: Top five memorable bench-clearing incidents

Chicago Cubs: Before the 2015 Wild Card game, tempers flared between the Cubs and Pirates in the early 90s.

On August 2, 1993, the Cubs and Pirates faced off in an afternoon battle at Wrigley Field…literally. It was a crazy game as the Cubs went on to erase an early 8-2 deficit and win 12-10. Yet that was not the main story, what happened in the 6th inning was.

This brawl was a build-up of several events. It mainly started when Cubs reliever Bob Scanlan plunked Pirates infielder Carlos Garcia after he hit two homers in the game. In the sixth Blas Minor threw behind Mark Grace (after trying to hit him on the first pitch), which resulted in Minor being ejected. Within seconds the benches cleared and met at the mound. 

It began as some typical shoving and shouting at each other. After a few seconds, they started to slowly back off, and it looked like it was over…until Scanlan started shouting and getting into the Pirates’ faces. Then punches began being thrown, and a brawl ensued. The group of shoving moved over to the Cubs dugout as players pinned each other near the fence. Scanlan and Al Martin were going at it during the whole thing. Lonnie Smith wanted a piece of Jose Bautista.

After the fire was put out and order was restored, Bautista later hit another batter, which resulted in Pirates manager Jim Leyland come screaming out of the dugout and getting ejected. The 1993 Cubs season was terrible and forgettable, but this brawl was certainly all but forgettable.