THE HISTORY OF CHARGING THE MOUND, EPISODE 1

TL;DR

A creator built a 264-event database of MLB mound chargings from 1950–2025 to document baseball's now-extinct tradition of batter-pitcher fights.

Key Points

• 1.Mound charging has no official MLB statistics, so the creator built his own database. After scouring newspaper archives and reviewing all available footage, he cataloged 264 events between 1950 and 2025 with custom scoring systems for fight intensity and bench-clearing chaos.
• 2.The debut fight featured Hubie Brooks vs. John Smiley on August 3rd, 1988. Smiley, frustrated after a Galaraga home run swung Pittsburgh's win expectancy below 30%, intentionally hit Brooks — who had nothing to do with the homer — prompting an immediate mound charge.
• 3.Andre Galaraga charged the mound four times across his career, tied for second-most in the 76-year sample. His repeated charges were the original inspiration for the entire series, which began as a single Galaraga video before expanding to 10 episodes.
• 4.The creator uses a dual 0–5 scoring system for each incident. One axis rates the individual fight (0 = no engagement, 5 = transcendent performance), while the Y-axis rates the surrounding bench-clearing chaos (0 = nobody ran out, 5 = 'Donnybrook' with police involvement).
• 5.Mound charging peaked in the 1980s–90s at more than once a month, then collapsed entirely. The 2010s saw it become extremely rare, and the entire 2020s decade has produced just one documented incident, leading the creator to declare the institution effectively dead.
• 6.The series runs 10 episodes covering iconic fights and overlooked characters. Highlights include Mike Sweeney vs. Jeff Weaver (Ep. 2), George Bell kicking Bruce Kison in the groin in 1985 (Eps. 3–4), Dave Rosema (Ep. 5), and Nolan Ryan vs. Robin Ventura — called the most iconic mound charging ever — in Episode 9.
• 7.The only perfect 5/5 fight in both categories was a 1984 Braves vs. Padres brawl at Fulton County Stadium. It was so chaotic that the creator listed the entire stadium crowd as a participant, and Episode 7 is a 45-minute deep dive into why mound charging disappeared from baseball entirely.