1. 1998 New York Yankees vs. Baltimore Orioles
What took place between the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees during the 1998 season should be considered the gold standard of brawls. You will not find a more eventful seven minutes of video anywhere else. From the moment Oriole’s reliever, Armando Benitez dropped his glove, you knew that this would end in nothing less than a bloodbath.
Benitez drilled Tino Martinez in between the numbers with a hard fastball with two outs in the eight inning, Yankees leading seven-five. As soon as the ball hit Tino, the Yankee’s bench was emptied with Darryl Strawberry leading the way, meeting Benitez at the mound. Yankee’s pitcher Graham Lloyd starts throwing wild hooks at Benitez, and somehow the entire brawl ends up in the dugout with Yankee’s third baseman Scott Brosius policing the brawl right on the entrance.
Tino was on fire throughout the entire fight looking for Benitez, but he couldn’t escape the three players holding him back. The scene in the dugout is one of epic proportions with announced Ken Singleton on the call: “All the action is in the dugout folks.”
"”It was good to see,” Yankee’s manager Joe Torre said of his players reacting and charging the field. ”You don’t like to see fights breaking out, but as far as a response to what happened, it was good to see. ”We talked about this a lot,” Torre said of protecting batters who are hit by pitches. ”We’re a family, and you can’t have somebody pick on somebody in your family.”"
Around the 4:59 minute mark, you’ll see every detail of the brawl broken down, and just how electric it was. The most effective punch of the fight was of the sucker punch variety and it belonged to Darryl Strawberry at the 6:03 mark.
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As for suspensions, Benitez received eight games, Lloyd and Strawberry each got three.