They say the beauty of sports is every time you go to a game you see something you’ve never seen before. I spent the spring of 2007 covering the Terp baseball team (that means a lot time in the Shipley Field press box), so when I went to today’s series finale against Boston College I expected the usual.

When I did show up, it seemed like the biggest new development in two years was the completion of the bathroom project at Shipley Field. That was until the bottom of the third inning when third baseman Mike Murphy stopped short of first base after flying out and ran towards Boston College catcher Tony Sanchez. Words were exchanged. The benches emptied and both players were restrained. (Sanchez-measuring 6-foot-1, 220 pounds- looked like he could do some damage.)

It seems the Terps took offense to the dugout chatter of the Eagles throughout the weekend. The end result, a near brawl, provided an interesting story line to a pretty standard late March series between two of the traditional bottom teams in the ACC. Afterwards, things pretty much calmed down, although the fans called for ejections after Eagles’ pitchers hit a pair of Terp batters later in the game and the postgame handshakes went without incident.

Here are a couple interesting takes on the situation: (more…)