A little more than one year after a group of Los Angeles Dodgers' fans beat a visiting San Francisco Giants' fan into a coma on opening day, another group of Dodgers' fans was arrested this past weekend for beating yet another fan following last Sunday's game.

Apparently, the altercation ensued after the game when the victim, a man in his late 20s, was involved in a small fender-bender in one of the parking lots outside of Dodgers' stadium.

During the ensuing fracas, police speculate that three of the individuals arrested forcibly restrained the victim while a fourth individual "kicked and hit him about the head and face area while he was on the ground," according to Sgt. David Armas of the Los Angeles police.

And all of this occurred while a woman eight months pregnant sat in the victim's car, powerless to do anything.

Given the blistering pace the Dodgers have started the season on, I'd say onetime Nationals team president and current member of the Dodgers new ownership team, Stan Kasten, may be forced to spend more time dealing with off-the-field issues than he'd prefer.

It's southern California, people. Chill out.

Meanwhile, just east of the Piedmont, both the Nats and the O's are battling it out for first in the respective divisions of their respective leagues. And while the O's recently took two of three from the Nats, neither of those victories was the kind of blowout the Nats enjoyed on Sunday, with lynchpins Espinoza, Harper, Zimmerman, Desmond and Strasburg all contributing two hits and all except Zimmerman pushing across at least one run during the game, with Strasburg's coming on his first major league homerun.

In fact, looking at MLB's standings here on Monday morning, I don't know what should make a local fan happier, the O's actually sitting in first place, the Nats only a game and a half out, or the Red Sox, Yankees and Phillies all cellar squatting like the filthy wretches we've all always known that they are.

Speaking of the Phillies, you may have missed the shenanigans a couple weeks ago (and that might be revisited) when Phillies' pitcher Cole Hamels decided to "welcome" Nats phenom Bryce Harper to the big leagues by intentionally beaning him the first time the two squared off. Following the game, Hamels admitted he'd hit Harper on purpose, explaining that, "it's something that I grew up watching, that's what happened, so I'm just trying to continue the old baseball — I think some people kind of get away from it… Sometimes the league is protecting certain players and making it not that old-school, prestigious way of baseball."

Major League Baseball suspended Cole Hamels for five games for 1) intentionally hitting Harper, and 2) being stupid enough to admit to it. The beauty of MLB's system of suspending pitchers for throwing dense, leather-wrapped projectiles at defenseless individuals at upwards of 95 MPH? Most of the time, and certainly in Hamels' case, the offender doesn't even miss a start. So, keep up the iron-gloved discipline, Commissioner.

As for Hamels' claim that beaning rookies is something he "grew up watching"? Last time I checked, Hamels is 29 years old, born in 1983. So, realistically speaking, the good old, wild-west, self-policing days of baseball that he remembers so fondly were the 1990s. If memory serves, those weren't exactly the days of foaming-at-the-mouth, glowing-eyed intimidators taking the mound every day.

Of course, Nats' starting pitcher Jordan Zimmermann retaliated. The good news? He retaliated by going after Hamels, not some poor schlub on the Phillies who had nothing to do with any of it. The bad news? He clipped Hamels in the leg when he squared around to bunt.

Hamels will have pitched against the Nats on Wednesday by the time this hits the stands. I'll be interested to see what happens.

As I'm sure will Hamels.

Kudos to the Redskins (I know, never thought I'd say that, did you?) for sitting rookie QB Robert Griffin III next to undoubtedly the most professional player on the team, linebacker London Fletcher. I don't honestly know if the arrangement was management's idea or Fletcher's, but it's the right one. Griffin has an unrealistic amount of expectation to live up to this year and being able to learn the game on the fly from a player as upstanding and well adjusted as Fletcher can only help the first-year player focus on the task at hand and not get carried away by all the hullabaloo.

Speaking of hullabaloo, if you're still paying attention to the sideshow in Miami instead of the remarkable play that's taking place in San Antonio, you're a chucklehead. The Spurs are showing anyone who cares to look what consistent excellence looks like. If I were the new owner of a dreadful, local basketball team, I might want to tune in and pay attention…

Just saying.

Alex can be reached at cuda24@yahoo.com