Jeff Jacobs wonders what can be done to stop baseball players ruining the pay-per-view boxing market.

On Monday, Bud Selig, acting commissioner for eternity, called for stronger penalties to prevent the kind of bench-clearing brawls that have haunted baseball in recent weeks. Actually, the brawls have proliferated for a number of years, but nobody got spooked until magic potions such as creatine turned mild-mannered, 98-pound shortstops into Incredible Hulks on espresso. The [Hartford] Whalers used to sit around their practice facility and chuckle over video of baseball fights. Grizzled hockey players would howl about grown men throwing punches like pre-schoolers in a manic game of patty-cake. They'd joke that even pencil-pushing geeks such as yours truly could manhandle the flimsy-wristed boys of summer. But if the Yankees-Orioles and Angels-Royals brawls of May 19 and June 2 are held up as frightening exhibits, it can be said without equivocation that the Boys of Creatine - among other performance-enchancing substances - have grown too big, mean and willing to maim each other. Basebrawls aren't Max Patkin, San Diego Chicken comic relief anymore. Selig instructed league presidents, the AL's Gene Budig and the NL's Leonard Coleman, and baseball CEO Paul Beeston to meet with the players association. This means significant action will be taken by, oh, 2525, if man is still alive.

But if the gang of omnipotent litigants known as the players' union could collectively agree, an immediate solution is to be found on Page 119 of the NHL Official Rules. It's Rule 72. It has worked for many years. No player may leave the bench or the penalty box during an altercation. The first offender from either or both teams automatically is suspended without pay for the next 10 games, regular season or playoffs. The second player is suspended without pay for the next five games. All players leaving the bench would be fined the maximum permitted by the collective bargaining agreement. The team is fined $10,000 for the first offense and it grows from there. The coaches are subject to suspension and a $10,000 fine. If a team is found to have reimbursed the player, the team is fined $100,000. Since the NHL season is half as long as the baseball season, the first player out of the dugout should be suspended 20 games without pay. The second guy 10 games without pay. Suspend and fine the manager. How many players got a suspension under Rule 72 in the NHL during the 1997-98 season? None, an NHL spokesman said Wednesday. Hockey has plenty of problems, some of them of the violent genre, but bench-clearing brawls aren't one of them. Baseball's idea of discipline is paying players when they're suspended. Where I'm from that's called vacation.

With the Florida Marlins' obituary written, baseball is in position to ride the wave of a terrific summer. The Yankees, Mark McGwire, Kerry Wood. There are riveting story lines. Bench-clearing brawls needn't be part of the equation. Unfortunately, the ugly succession of hit batsmen that has led to the bench-clearing brawls is not as easily legislated. There can be a thin line between the art of a brushback and the criminal act of a beanball. A sort of frontier justice has been in place for decades. The rules go something like this: You only buzz a hitter in retaliation for the opposing pitcher buzzing your teammate, or if a guy hits a home run and hot-dogs around the bases. Whatever you do, don't throw a 97-mph fastball off the upper back or head. It could kill or paralyze. This is why even his Oriole teammates turned their backs on Armando Benitez after he allowed a home run to Bernie Williams and drilled Tino Martinez in the upper back. If the Yankee cleanup hitter hadn't ducked, he could have suffered a serious cranial injury. The problem with allowing the players to establish their own rules, of course, is there are unstable pitchers such as Benitez. Even stars such as Kevin Brown and Randy Johnson are averaging nearly .5 hit batsmen per nine innings - far more than acceptable - during their career. This is not to argue against pitchers pushing hitters off the plate to establish their turf. But the macho celebration of Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale brushing back and, yes, plunking hitters has grown far too romantic over the years. This ain't peanuts and crackerjacks, folks. This is overt intimidation. And when Benitez loses control, it's assault with a deadly weapon. Chin music shouldn't be a funeral dirge. After fines and suspensions were announced, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and Anaheim's Jack McDowell took shots at Budig's sporting acumen. George wondered if Budig ever wore a jock strap. McDowell said when Budig steps into the world between the white lines, he always seems to make bad calls. Both men's lack of public respect for Budig is, at best, disappointing. But there is a point to be made. The NHL uses Brian Burke as its dean of discipline. Why doesn't major league baseball have a three-man committee of a former pitcher, a former umpire and the league president to develop a strong, knowledgeable system for meting discipline on beanballs and weaning the game off a dangerous history of pitcher retaliation?