Why Odor vs. Bautista wasn’t a crime

With a hard right hook, Rougned Odor sealed a spot in Rangers lore.

Don’t expect police to ruin the celebration.

Major League Baseball will likely suspend and fine Odor after he punched Toronto Blue Jays right fielder Jose Bautista in the jaw during an eighth-inning brawl Sunday afternoon.

But legally, it’s often understood that what happens on the field of play stays there.

“It happens all the time in baseball,” said Sgt. VaNessa Harrison, an Arlington police spokesman. “We don't get involved unless they notify us. It’s sports, which is a totally different ballgame.”

Blue Jays manager John Gibbons called the Rangers “gutless” after Sunday’s game. Bautista told reporters, “He got me pretty good, so I have to give him that.”

But so far, neither Gibbons nor Bautista — nor anyone else from Major League Baseball — has reached out to authorities.

Barring a serious incident, “we would not be involved with anything that happens on the field,” Harrison said. “If someone tried to enter the field or trespass along those lines, or vice-versa, we would get involved. Otherwise, it’s pretty much their field.”

Fights are part of the game.

When White Sox third baseman Robin Ventura charged the mound toward Rangers pitcher Nolan Ryan in 1993, Ryan put Ventura in a headlock and punched him.

In 1965, San Francisco Giants’ pitcher Juan Marichal hit Los Angeles Dodgers’ catcher John Roseboro in the head with a bat. Marichal was suspended for eight days and fined $1,750, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Brawls are more prevalent in hockey.

HockeyFights.com keeps a “fight log” for the National Hockey League, categorizing fights by team and player and allowing readers to vote on who won the fight. The site counted 344 league fights this season.

In 2004, Colorado Avalanche forward Steve Moore was hit from behind by Todd Bertzuzzi of the Vancouver Canucks and suffered three fractured vertebrae and a concussion. Bertzuzzi pleaded guilty to criminal assault causing bodily harm and was sentenced to one year of probation, in addition to a 15-month suspension from the NHL, according to The New York Times.

Barry Sorrels, a Dallas criminal defense attorney and an admitted Rangers “homer,” said Odor was within his rights — even if he wasn’t on the playing field.

“If he hadn't been so athletic to avoid being hit so hard, that could have been a career-ending injury caused by [Bautista’s slide],” Sorrels said. “He absolutely had a right to defend himself.”

The common nature of baseball fights, even if punches are rarely landed as squarely as Odor’s, would make for an easy legal defense, Sorrels said.

“In sports, if you’re out there, you know this is going to happen and everybody sort of recognizes that this is going to happen,” Sorrels said. “Just by being out there, you're kind of consenting to be involved in this.”

This story was originally published May 16, 2016 at 2:11 PM with the headline "Why Odor vs. Bautista wasn’t a crime."