Did Kansas, Missouri fight? That's one for the X-files

LAWRENCE, Kan. -- This is why we love college baseball: On the glitz scale, it hardly shines, being half aluminum.

There is no BCS for analysts to kvetch about. The sport doesn't even require our full attention. It matters for one month. This month.

That's why you need to know about two relative non-threats heading into the 64-team NCAA Tournament that begins this weekend.

Kansas is enjoying entry into its first postseason in 12 years, clutching its first conference title in 57.

A heck of a case can be made in the NCAA rulebook for the Jayhawks staying home.

They are not alone. Big 12 rival Missouri could be packing its hopes, dreams and bats, too.

Conference officials had only a 10-second slice of videotape to help determine if both teams should have been slapped with multiple-game suspensions after a bench-clearing brawl Saturday night in Oklahoma City.

"The NCAA's fight rule is so severe that it's every coach's fear that you could have an incident like that," Kansas coach Ritch Price said. "It could have ruined the (Big 12) championship game and ruined the regional we're going to, too."

Fighting an opposing player carries a one-game suspension. But any coach or player who leaves their position to participate in a fight is suspended for three games.

In this case, pretty much everyone left their positions, including umpires who tried to break up the dust-up. The conference is sensitive about the word "fight," maybe because to use it would give more legitimacy to the three-game vacation.

In the frantic minutes after players were separated, commissioner Kevin Weiberg huddled with subordinates, the conference umpire coordinator and stadium personnel to make a call.

There was no doubt Missouri's Brock Bond (left) and Kansas' Ryne Price got into it. (AP)

Here's what made the moment so unique: The tournament semifinal game was not televised. It was late, about 11 p.m., so all the local TV hacks were packed up and already in Mickey Mantle's restaurant bar across the street from Bricktown Ballpark. Maybe at home. We don't know.

There were only a few precious seconds of the in-stadium replay showing the aftermath after Kansas' Ryne Price had bumped into Missouri third baseman Brock Bond while rounding third during a second-inning home run.

Intentional? No one is sure. That's a secondary point, anyway. The fact that the game wasn't televised was a comment on the sport and sports in general: If it isn't on TV, it doesn't matter.

Television coverage of the baseball tournament itself has never been better. The College World Series in Omaha is arguably the best championship on the NCAA calendar.

But in the overall sports pecking order, college baseball might as well be a UFO ... appearing before small bands of believers in rural areas.

So a controversy like Saturday's didn't make many front pages or home pages. Especially when there wasn't sufficient video.

If there had been, this could have been a monumental mess. The brawl/fight/senior prom would have been converted into an endless highlight reel across the cable platform.

It wouldn't have ended there. The rules governing the situation are so contradictory and confusing, the episode wouldn't have died in the still of the Oklahoma night.

In one sense, the NCAA rulebook seems clear after the two players tangled and both dugouts emptied during Kansas' 4-3 victory.

All team personnel, including coaches, who leave their positions and participate in a fight shall be ejected and suspended for the team's next three contests.

But a few paragraphs later, the rulebook says coaches are expected to leave their positions to break up a fight.

Adding to the untelevised furor, an amendment to the original rule seems to be a further contradiction:

If a player or coach makes physical contact with another player in an obvious attempt to prevent a fight or confrontation in self-defense (they) shall not be suspended.

Finally, it seems that conferences are allowed to lobby the NCAA for staggered suspensions anyway if multiple players are involved. So much for the next three games.

Leave your position, get suspended. But coaches should leave their position to break up a fight. Players, too. And if they somehow get suspended, their penalties can be deferred. Sounds a lot like that wooden bat, steroid-fueled league.

That's assuming there even was a fight/chess match/wedgie competition Saturday in OKC.

Getting a mixed message?

The Big 12 decided to suspend only the two original combatants -- for a game each. Kansas beat Nebraska the next day for the conference tournament title without Price. Bond will not play in Missouri's first-round game on Friday.

It could have been a lot worse. Imagine Kansas not being able to field a team for the next day's game against the Huskers. Tickets and advertising had been sold for that game, which was on TV.

For that one, Weiberg firmly asked the replay officials to keep the cameras rolling, just in case.

Missouri, too, was at risk of having its season end. Although it was eliminated from the Big 12 Tournament on Saturday, it got a somewhat surprising at-large bid to the NCAAs on Monday.

"If they screwed up, they deserve to be tossed," Missouri coach Tim Jamieson said of his players. "If they did something wrong, they deserve to pay the consequences."

So what happened? Or, more appropriately, what didn't?

It seems that conference officials were forced to determine what constitutes a "fight". A lone wire photo from the game seems to show at least three players in a scuffle.

Weiberg says there wasn't enough video evidence.

"There's no question if you had a clear incident of widespread incident of punches thrown, if we appropriate video of incidents, we would have taken appropriate action," he said.

When CBS SportsLine.com specifically asked Kansas' Matt Baty if he saw punches, the Big 12 MVP said: "There was something, a little bit going on."

With a conference title and NCAA berths on the line, Big 12 officials -- without the help of proper replay -- had to interpret the rulebook on the fly.

The slap fight/presidential debate/wet T-shirt contest turned out to be the biggest compromise involving Missouri since, well, the Missouri Compromise.

Who knows if the Big 12 got it right? It did get a conference-record seven teams into the Big Ping. Who cares, except those full-fledged fans in this half-aluminum sport?

"I do believe in my first year (2003) we weren't competitive enough to even be involved in something like that," Ritch Price said of his team. "We've raised the bar. If you want to use the words 'lightning rod.' we've got competitive young men in this dugout now. The game is important to them. ... To me the statement that was made was we're not backing down."

Hurray, manhood.

Jamieson was wondering about the long-term effects of the brawl/tea party/state debate meet would be. We're sure they're going to be severe. The Kansas-Missouri rivalry literally dates back to the Civil War.

"Considering what happened, and we lose one guy for one game? We're pretty fortunate," Jamieson said.

Who needs TV? Play on, UFO.