news-record.com

GREENSBORO — A crowd of 6,604 showed up Thursday at First Horizon Park to consume cheap beer, watch a little baseball and help set Greensboro's season attendance record yet again.

But a decade from now, they won't remember that the Kannapolis Intimidators beat the Grasshoppers 4-3. By then, 50,000 will claim to have been at First Horizon Park on the night managers fought, cops took to the field and ejected players were allowed to keep playing.

Audio:

Grasshoppers manager Edwin Rodriguez discusses the brawl between the Hoppers and Kannapolis on Thursday. Listen (1:15)

The Grasshoppers' Logan Morrison explains his theory of why the Kannapolis Intimidators hit him twice with pitches on Thursday. Listen (:36)

"Do we still have a full moon, or are we out of that?" asked Donald Moore, the Hoppers' president.

The game degenerated into a wacky mélange of goon hockey and WWE after Kannapolis starter Jose Zazueta plunked the Grasshoppers' Logan Morrison with a pitch in the first inning and again in third. Zazueta cited the need for retribution after an incident in Kannapolis two nights earlier.

In that one, Greensboro closer Blake Jones, trying to protect a three-run lead, threw a pitch that struck Kannapolis cleanup hitter Chris Carter in the eye. Jones said he had no reason or desire to throw at Carter. Kannapolis manager Chris Jones apparently disagreed, and Hoppers manager Edwin Rodriguez was angry about Thursday's retaliation.

"Come on," Rodriguez said. "Retaliating for what? And then if you hit him once, OK, let's get it over. Twice? Come on. You're going to get somebody hurt. I lost respect for all the staff. Especially Chris Jones. He showed me what he got. He got no class."

Morrison became the target because he occupied the same spot in his team's order as Carter had filled for his team. Thursday's first incident generated warnings and shoving matches. The second instigated an all-out brawl that featured five minutes of pugilism and 50 minutes of adjudication overseen by four members of the Greensboro police force.

"They threw at me, but I'm not quite sure why because it was a 1-2 count in the bottom of the ninth when Carter got hit with a three-run lead," Morrison said. "So it's not like we were trying to do it. They took offense to that. They hit me once. Fine. Whatever. They hit me twice? That's when you're thinking of going and doing something because of what happened."

Morrison didn't even have time to charge the mound. Umpires Matthew Abbott and Barry Lee tossed so many players that they didn't know what to do. Should they continue with pitchers fielding and fielders pitching? Should they call the whole thing off? Doing that would have wiped out the official attendance, which had allowed the Hoppers to surpass their season record.

Ultimately, Moore called John Henry Moss, who is retiring in December after 50 years as the South Atlantic League's president. Having apparently determined that the game must go on, Moss reinstated the dismissed players.

"The first 30-40 minutes we were down there, it looked like the game was going to be forfeited," Moore said. "There wouldn't be a winner. I told the umpires and both managers that we were here to play a baseball game. Thank goodness Mr. Moss said, 'Reinstate those players. I'll deal with them tomorrow. Go play baseball.' And that all took about 50 minutes."

And it had a fascinating caveat. The dugouts would be empty for the remainder of the game. When not at bat, on deck or manning a defensive position, players were to remain in their clubhouses, which were protected by Greensboro's finest. Grasshoppers front-office personnel became messengers, summoning the sequestered players from their lockers to the field when a half-inning ended or their spot in the batting order drew near.

When Lee Cruz hit a two-run homer with one out in the ninth and lifted the Intimidators from a 3-2 deficit to a 4-3 lead, there was nobody to greet him. The blast came off Blake Jones.

The on-field stuff trumped the evening's other news. The Greensboro franchise surpassed last year's attendance record of 427,890 with one home game to spare. The Hoppers are thought to be the first team in minor league baseball history to top 400,000 in the first year of a ballpark and follow that up with consecutive annual increases.

They're now at 432,085 through 67 home dates, which puts them third among the 60 full-season Class A teams in average and total attendance.

Contact Rob Daniels at 373-7028 or rdaniels@news-record.com