August 17, 1971: Expos, Padres brawl after Ron Hunt gets plunked in consecutive plate appearances

San Diego Padres hurler Steve Arlin could hardly be classified as a headhunter. Coming into his August 17, 1971, start against the Montreal Expos, he had hit only four batters in 197 big-league innings. That didn’t stop the pugnacious Ron Hunt, who was usually fine with reaching base on a hit-by-pitch, from grumbling when Arlin hit him.1 But when Hunt was plunked again in his next at-bat, all hell broke loose. Hunt started throwing punches, kicking off a nasty bench-clearing brawl that lasted for 10 minutes.2

The 30-year-old Hunt had been acquired by the Expos in a December 1970 deal with the San Francisco Giants,3 marking the third time the hard-nosed second baseman had been traded in a four-year period.4 The Giants had become concerned with his limited range in the infield and shifted him into a utility role, which led to Hunt’s requesting a trade.5 San Francisco happily obliged, freeing up more playing time for the slick-fielding Tito Fuentes.6

Shortly after the trade, Hunt—a career .272 hitter with limited power—explained to a Montreal sportswriter why he preferred to bat second rather than leadoff.7 “I’m not fast, I don’t bunt that often, and I don’t get too many walks,” he said in his usual blunt manner. “What I do is get hit a lot.”8

Hunt was notorious for crowding the plate and intentionally taking one for the team. He rarely complained after getting hit.9 Usually he just picked up the ball and casually flipped it back to the pitcher in an act of defiance.10 Asked why he got hit so often, he responded, “I can’t say it’s because I don’t move because that won’t go down well with the umpires.”11

When he was traded to Montreal, Hunt claimed that he had been hurt seriously by a pitch only three times, with the most serious injury occurring when Tom Seaver hit him in the back of the head with a sailing fastball in 1969.12 Seaver called Hunt while he was in the hospital to tell him that he didn’t mean to hit him. “Who’re you kidding?” Hunt replied. “Hell, it’s part of the game. You don’t have to lie about it.”13

The August 17 game at San Diego Stadium was a matchup of cellar-dwelling expansion cousins in their third year of existence. The Padres had the worst record in baseball (46-77), leaving them a distant 26 games behind the first-place Giants in the National League West Division. The Expos, trailing the division-leading Pittsburgh Pirates by 22 games, weren’t much better at 48-71.

Both starting pitchers were 25-year-old rookie right-handers who had been late-round selections in the NL’s 1968 expansion draft. Arlin, with a 7-14 record and a 3.21 ERA, was in his first full season in the majors after making six appearances with the Padres in 1969 and ’70.14

Ernie McAnally had pitched only one season above Class A ball when he made his big-league debut on April 11. After struggling in his first 10 appearances, he was demoted to the Triple-A Winnipeg Whips in early June. McAnally had pitched better since being recalled later that month, boosting his record to 4-9 and lowering his ERA to 5.03.

The Expos took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first on two singles and a sacrifice fly by Ron Fairly.

Arlin displayed some minor control issues early in the game, issuing a wild pitch and a walk in the first two innings. Hunt, leading off the third, had to duck when a high and inside pitch nearly hit him and the ball ricocheted off his bat. Two pitches later, Arlin nailed him on the shoulder and the ball bounced up, smacking him in the mouth. Hunt snarled at Arlin and headed to first base.15

Arlin got out of the third unscathed and he cruised through the fourth, limiting Montreal to just a walk.

Meanwhile, McAnally had kept the Padres off the scoresheet by scattering three singles and two walks in the first four innings.

McAnally led off the eventful fifth with a single. The next batter, Hunt, was hit in the shoulder once again by Arlin. Hunt walked slowly to retrieve the ball, which had bounced 20 feet up the first-base line. He picked it up and let Arlin know what he would do if he was plunked again.16

Then Hunt turned to Padres catcher Bob Barton, who had followed him up the line, and said, “If he hits me again I’m going to punch you in the mouth,” while jabbing his finger into Barton’s chest protector.17 Hunt didn’t appreciate Barton’s response, so he yanked off the catcher’s mask and punched him in the back of the head.18 As the benches emptied, Barton and Hunt exchanged solid punches to the head.19

Expos third-base coach Don Zimmer made a beeline for Arlin,20 “raining blows to the back and ribs” of the pitcher until Padres third baseman Ed Spiezio began wrestling with him.21 Arlin kneed the 40-year-old Zimmer in the head and then Montreal’s Steve Renko—an imposing 6-feet-5, 230 pounds − tossed the San Diego hurler to the ground.22 “I wanted a piece of Arlin,” growled a feisty Zimmer. “He’d started it all, and there was no way he was going to get off without paying for it.”23

Padres first baseman Nate Colbert and Expos manager Gene Mauch piled into the Hunt-Barton mêlée near the first-base line, and the usual shoving and grabbing continued until order was restored. Hunt was the only one ejected, which triggered a heated response from Mauch, who believed Barton should also have been tossed.

The bench-clearing incident seemed to fire up the Expos. Two batters later, Rusty Staub singled home a run. After Fairly was walked intentionally to load the bases, Bob Bailey cleared them with a 420-foot triple, giving Montreal a 5-0 lead.

The Expos added four unearned runs on four singles and three San Diego errors in the seventh, knocking Arlin out of the game.24

Montreal scored two more runs off rookie reliever Bill Laxton in the ninth to cap an 11-0 blowout victory. McAnally limited the Padres to only one hit and one walk after the brawl, earning his first career shutout.

Hunt was unrepentant for slugging Barton, his former teammate on the 1968-69 Giants. “Sure, I’m sorry,” he said. “Sorry I didn’t hit him a helluva lot harder.”25

The hit-by-pitches were Hunt’s 33rd and 34th of the year, extending his single-season record for most HPBs in the NL or AL since 1901.26 He finished the season with a stunning 50 hit-by-pitches, which as of 2023 had not been topped.27

Hunt’s 50 HBPs stands out as one of the most impressive single-season records in big-league history. He was hit by a pitch almost 15 times more frequently than a league-average batter that season. For perspective, to surpass the league-average home-run rate by a similar multiple would have required him to slug an outrageous 175 round-trippers in 1971.28

Montreal beat writers rewarded Hunt’s tenacity by voting him—not Staub—the team’s MVP.29 Hunt had a career year, setting personal bests for hits (145), runs (89), Baseball-Reference Wins Above Replacement (5.1), and, of course, hit-by-pitches.30 His .402 on-base percentage was fourth best in the league, trailing only Willie Mays, Joe Torre, and Hank Aaron.

The Expos went 22-19 the rest of the way, nudging them above the .500 mark for the second half of the season and giving them a 71-90 record.31 Mauch’s preseason proclamation that the Expos would “take a run at 81 in ’71” didn’t quite materialize,32 but the late-season surge lifted them past the Phillies, avoiding a last-place finish for the first time.33 Although the Expos stumbled into a bizarre pennant race in 1973, they had to wait until 1979 for their first winning season.34

The Padres finished the season with a 61-100 mark, leaving them in the cellar for the third of six consecutive years.35  

In the second game of a July 23, 1972, doubleheader against the Padres, Hunt broke Minnie Miñoso’s record for the most career hit-by-pitches in the NL/AL since 1901.36 It was the 193rd time he had been hit by a pitch.

Hunt remained with the Expos until early September 1974, when he was selected off waivers by the St. Louis Cardinals, who used him mainly as a pinch-hitter down the stretch.37 He was released by the Cardinals the next spring, ending a pain-filled 12-year career. He led the league in HBPs in each of his last seven seasons.

Hunt finished with 243 career hit-by-pitches (in only 6,158 plate appearances), a record that stood until 1987 when he was surpassed by Don Baylor, who was in turn eclipsed by Craig Biggio in 2005. As of 2023, Hunt was fourth in HBPs in the NL/AL since 1901, trailing Biggio (285 in 12,504 PAs), Baylor (267 in 9,401 PAs), and Jason Kendall (254 in 8,702 PAs).

But Hunt paid a price for his rugged style of play. Later in life he began to suffer from Parkinson’s-like symptoms, which doctors believed were likely caused by head trauma sustained during his playing days.38

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kurt Blumenau and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to using the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org. Unless otherwise noted, all detailed information for this game was taken from the article “Plunked Twice, Hunt Finally Hits Back” on page 13 of the August 18, 1971, edition of the Montreal Gazette.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SDN/SDN197108170.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1971/B08170SDN1971.htm

Photo credit

Photo of Ron Hunt downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Hunt was closing in on the record for the most career hit-by-pitches in the American/National League since 1901. He came into the game having been hit by 159 pitches in his career. At the time, Minnie Miñoso held the career record for most hit-by-pitches in the American or National League since 1901 (192). Miñoso was also hit by five pitches in the Negro National League. John Robertson, “Hunt Packs Punch as Expos Pummel Padres,” Montreal Star, August 18, 1971: 29.

2 United Press International, “Expos Crush Padres; Hunt Slugs Catcher,” Ottawa Journal, August 18, 1971: 25.

3 Hunt was traded for 27-year-old first baseman Dave McDonald, who had played in 9 games with the 1969 New York Yankees. Hunt was incredulous when he found out who he had been traded for. “GM Horace] Stoneham must’ve been drunk when he made the deal,” he fumed. The Expos purchased McDonald’s contract from the Giants less than three months later. He played in only 24 more big-league games, all with the 1971 Expos. McDonald compiled a .145 career batting average in 62 major-league at-bats. “Stoneham, Fox Answer Hunt,” San Francisco Examiner, January 20, 1971: 53.

4 Hunt broke in with the New York Mets in 1963, finishing a distant second to Pete Rose in Rookie of the Year voting. In 1964 Hunt became the first Met to start an All-Star Game. He was also an All-Star in 1966. In his four seasons with the Mets, Hunt batted .282 and was hit by “only” 41 pitches. On November 29, 1966, the Mets traded him, along with Jim Hickman, to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Tommy Davis and Derrell Griffith. He spent only one season in Los Angeles. His hit-by-pitches ramped up significantly after he was dealt to the Giants on February 13, 1968.

5 “Trade to Expos; Hunt Youth Drive Victim,” San Francisco Examiner, January 5, 1971: 45.

6 Dan Rosenburg, “Expos Bolster Infield Weaknesses with Acquisition of Fiery Hunt,” Montreal Star, January 5, 1971: 25.

7 Hunt had a career .272 batting average at the time of his trade to Montreal. He finished his career with a .273 batting average.

8 Ted Blackman, “Expos Had Medicare in Mind with Hunt Deal,” Montreal Gazette, January 6, 1971: 9.

9 Robertson, “Hunt Packs Punch as Expos Pummel Padres.”

10 Gary Belleville, “Ron Hunt, Coco Crisp, and the Normalization of Hit-by-Pitch Statistics,” Baseball Research Journal (Fall 2018), https://sabr.org/journal/article/ron-hunt-coco-crisp-and-the-normalization-of-hit-by-pitch-statistics/, accessed March 1, 2023.

11 Blackman, “Expos Had Medicare in Mind with Hunt Deal.”

12 Dick Young, “Tom’s 19th, 8-0; SF On a Walk, 3-2,” New York Daily News, September 1, 1969: 56; Blackman, “Expos Had Medicare in Mind with Hunt Deal.”

13 Blackman, “Expos Had Medicare in Mind with Hunt Deal.”

14 Arlin went on to lead the National League in losses in both 1971 (19 losses) and 1972 (21 losses).

15 Robertson, “Hunt Packs Punch as Expos Pummel Padres”; Phil Collier, “Hunt, Barton Brawl Adds Spice to Expos 11-0 KO,” San Diego Union, August 18, 1971: 19.

16 Robertson, “Hunt Packs Punch as Expos Pummel Padres.”

17 Collier, “Hunt, Barton Brawl Adds Spice to Expos 11-0 KO.”

18 The United Press International game story indicated that Hunt’s first punch hit Barton on the chin, although more than one report indicated that Barton was hit in the back of the head with the first blow. John Maffei, “Expos Brawl Past Pads,” Escondido (California) Daily Times-Advocate, August 18, 1971: 16; Collier, “Hunt, Barton Brawl Adds Spice to Expos 11-0 KO.”

19 Collier, “Hunt, Barton Brawl Adds Spice to Expos 11-0 KO.”

20 Zimmer was involved in a similar bench-clearing incident 32 years later in Game Three of the 2003 ALCS. The 72-year-old New York Yankees coach charged at Pedro Martínez of the Boston Red Sox shortly after he had plunked Karim Garcia. Zimmer lost his balance as he approached Martínez, who grabbed him by the head and pushed him to the ground. Zimmer was an Expos coach for only one season. He managed the Padres—and Steve Arlin—in 1972 and 1973. “Pedro Martínez: Pushing Don Zimmer ‘My Only Regret’ in Entire Career,” Sports Illustrated, April 29, 2015, https://www.si.com/mlb/2015/04/29/pedro-martinez-don-zimmer-yankees-red-sox-brawl, accessed March 2, 2023.

21 Collier, “Hunt, Barton Brawl Adds Spice to Expos 11-0 KO.”

22 Robertson, “Hunt Packs Punch as Expos Pummel Padres.”

23 Robertson, “Hunt Packs Punch as Expos Pummel Padres.”

24 Arlin came out of the game trailing, 7-0. There were two out in the seventh and runners on second and third when he was replaced by reliever Al Severinsen. Both inherited runners scored on a single by John Bateman and a Padres error. 

25 Robertson, “Hunt Packs Punch as Expos Pummel Padres.”

26 Hunt had set the single-season record when he was hit by a pitch from Cincinnati Reds hurler Jim McGlothlin on August 7. It was his 32nd hit-by-pitch of the season, one more than Steve Evans had with the 1910 St. Louis Cardinals. “Player Batting Season & Career Stats Finder,” Stathead.com, https://stathead.com/tiny/QFodt, accessed March 2, 2023.

27 Hughie Jennings of the NL’s Baltimore Orioles was hit by 51 pitches in 1896.

28 Willie Stargell led the National League with 48 round-trippers in 1971. Belleville, “Ron Hunt, Coco Crisp, and the Normalization of Hit-by-Pitch Statistics.”

29 The popular Staub played in all 162 games in 1971 and hit .311 with 19 homers and 97 RBIs. Hunt was a sparkplug at the top of the order, hitting .279 with 89 runs scored. Dan Rosenburg, “Expos Wobble On,” Montreal Star, December 24, 1971: 28.

30 Hunt also had 145 hits in his rookie season of 1963 with the New York Mets.

31 It was the first time the Expos had played at least .500 baseball for a half-season.

32 Rosenburg, “Expos Wobble On.”

33 Montreal finished in fifth place, 25½ games behind the division-winning Pittsburgh Pirates.

34 The Expos went 95-65 in 1979, finishing two games behind the Pittsburgh Pirates, who went on to win the World Series.

35 The Padres didn’t even break the .500 mark for a full month until they went 17-11 in June 1974. They had gone 2-0 in October 1969 and 1-0 in October 1973. The Padres had their first winning season in 1978.  

36 The record-breaking pitch was thrown by rookie reliever Mark Schaeffer. Hunt claimed that he had broken the record in the first game of the twin bill when he was clipped on the sleeve by—you guessed it—Arlin. But home-plate umpire Bruce Froemming ignored Hunt’s appeal to be awarded first base. “Hunt’s Hit Record Clouds Other Feats,” Montreal Star, July 24, 1972: 23.

37 The Cardinals and Pirates were locked in a tight pennant race when Hunt was acquired on September 5, 1974. The Expos eventually dashed the Cardinals’ pennant hopes on October 1 by defeating them on Mike Jorgensen’s home run off Bob Gibson. Hunt went 4-for-23 (.174) with 2 HBPs for the Cardinals.

38 Mike Puma, “How Beloved Mets Star Ron Hunt Is Tackling His Health Problems with a Big Assist from Bret Saberhagen,” New York Post, January 6, 2023, https://nypost.com/2021/11/05/ron-hunts-daughter-raising-money-for-ex-mets-treatment/, accessed March 2, 2023.