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Major League Baseball has fined Cleveland’s Chris Perez for tweeting a postgame tweet that “demonstrated a reckless disregard for the safety of the players on both [his team and the Kansas City Royals].” Perez, who will earn $4.5 million this year, will have to pony up $750 for his act of Twitter terrorism and he’s none too pleased about it. Maybe he’ll think twice before tweeting after bench-clearing brawls.

The backstory: Cleveland beat Kansas City 11-9 last Saturday in a game that was marred by not one but two brawls. After the game, Perez took to Twitter and tweeted this “reckless” tweet: “Huge team win tonight; time for a sweep to tell the Royals it’s not ‘Our Time’, it’s #TribeTime. P.S. You hit us, we hit you. Period.”

“A reckless disregard?” said a puzzled Perez. “To me, that would be saying, ‘Royals, you better watch out. I’m coming for you.’ And then going out there and hitting somebody — inciting it. Looking back, nothing happened that next day. We played a regular game. Nothing happened the rest of that night. I pitched that night and nothing happened.”

Is this a civil rights issue? Perhaps, says Perez. “It’s freedom of speech,” offered the Tribe closer. “I felt I was within my rights as an American.”