MLB: Joe Frazier Offers to Teach Players to Fight

Whenever one sees a “fight” in the MLB, it typically involves  players milling about and being held back by others, a glorified shouting match where players try looking tough. On those rare occasions when punches are thrown, they tend to be wild swings that do not connect with anything. Back in 1967, Joe Frazier wanted to change that.

Fights in the MLB are typically a fight in name only. In reality, it is a glorified shouting match where players try to be held back and look like they are “tough,” and willing to defend their teammates. Instead, “fights” in baseball are mainly the equivalent of a pillow fight, with the actual punch thrown by Rougned Odor that connected with Jose Bautista being the rare exception.

However, that did not have to be the case. Almost 50 years ago, heavyweight contender, and future champion, Joe Frazier noticed how bad fighting in baseball was. He saw players getting hurt trying to throw punches, the wild swings, and the general mayhem that these brawls entail, and decided that something needed to be done about it.

More from Call to the Pen

• Philadelphia Phillies, ready for a stretch run, bomb St. Louis Cardinals
• Philadelphia Phillies: The 4 players on the franchise’s Mount Rushmore
• Boston Red Sox fans should be upset over Mookie Betts’ comment
• Analyzing the Boston Red Sox trade for Dave Henderson and Spike Owen
• 2023 MLB postseason likely to have a strange look without Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals

And so, it was on this day in 1967 that Frazier offered his services to Major League Baseball. He wanted to teach the players how to fight, so that they could actually brawl without hurting themselves and to actually know how to land punches. Frazier sited Yankees first baseman Joe Pepitone as a prime reason why the MLB needed his tutelage, as Pepitone “…banged up his hands without getting a punch across. Baseball players should know about combinations as well as double plays.”

It would certainly have been interesting to see what would have happened had the Yankees, or other baseball players, taken Frazier up on his offer. He even offered to host the clinic during one of the Yankees off days, just to make sure that Pepitone could make the class. Alas, nothing came of the offer, as Frazier went on to become of the great heavyweight fighters, and baseball players still typically flailing about like the Wacky Waving Inflatable Tube Man.

Next: Ten greatest final seasons in baseball history

Does the MLB need fighting? It really doesn’t, but if the players knew how to fight, then those incidents could have a lot more amusement value.