While physical play is a greater part of the game, fighting isn't "allowed" in hockey, it's just penalized differently. In hockey, if you get in a fight, the penalty is 5 minutes and possibly a "game misconduct" (ejection from the game). In baseball, fighting gets a player ejected and fined.

In both sports, the rules have been tightened in the last ten or so years to cut back on the fighting. That's probably because most of the time, the fights really aren't that fun to watch. A good hockey fight can be entertaining, but most of the time it's just sweater-pulling, dancing and a poorly executed punch or two. Baseball fights are even worse - the excitement is short, usually disappointing (see Youkilis' charge for a good case and point) and it takes too long to get all the other players off the field.

We shouldn't expect competitive players in the heat of competition to always react perfectly, but the rules for both sports do an adequate job of keeping the players in line and keeping the sports entertaining.

If you need a good fight, there's always boxing or MMA.

I used to watch a lot of baseball, but it started getting boring to me. While I don't think that baseball should allow fighting simply because hockey players get to fight, it seems that fights would probably help increase it's popularity some.

It would be very cool if they would allow it, or even if they just allowed it to go a little longer than it does now. Each guy gets in a couple of good punches, THEN they break it up.

Someone who has a lot of respect for baseball will probably disagree.

I think any fight that happens in baseball should be penalized with ejection, fine and or suspension. In hockey there are penalties involved in fighting, so the same thing should happen in baseball.