Michael Jordan did not punch Danny Ferry. he never punched any Piston, he never punched any Knick, he never punched anyone on the Heat. he never punched anyone. no matter how hard they hit him, no matter how many times they hammered him in mid-air, and trashed talked about it afterwords, he didn't punch them back, no matter how many times it was deserved. you know what he did? he had Stan Livingston and Will Purdue and Scott Williams take care of the dirty work for him. don't sit there and tell me that adult human males are incapable of showing restraint in that situation and that in so doing it was keeping the teams best interest in mind. I don't blame Lee for throwing a punch, but the insinuations that it was uncontrollable or good for the team or the right thing to do or morally superior to others actions are just insane. at some point someone has to be the 'mature baseball professional.' Soriano has to at the very least be a little more discrete in his celebration. Peavy has to shut his punk mouth. the Pads manager has to tell his team to suck it up and get payback on the field, not in the papers or with beanballs. Chris Young has to not be Peavys puppet and just go about the business of winning baseball games, not evening scores and being a punk when he does so. and Derrick Lee has to take it like a man, go to first, and get his revenge with his play. if any one of these idiots just acted like a 'mature professional' it wouldn't have gotten as far as it did. of all people, the one who wasn't a total fricken idiot is David Wells, who said he didn't even see Soriano's dance and he'd have to file it away. that's how you handle it. you wait until the next time you face the perpetrator, and even the score personally, either through getting him out and showing him up, or with a harmless beanball at the hip. I dont disagree with what you say about Peavy or Wells, but as it has been pointed out already, Jordan DID throw punches. It's just a fact that sometimes, when you feel you have been so wronged (or in this case, your safety has been endangered), there is no way you can expect any man to think about 'the team.' Lee did what anybody would do in that situation. Was it right? No, but you can't fault him for snapping at that moment.