Carlos Gomez homers, admires it, incites benches-clearing brawl with Braves

Carlos Gomez took his time admiring a solo home run during Wednesday's Brewers-Braves game:

After exchanging harsh words with pitcher Paul Maholm as he rounded the bases, a confrontation with catcher Brian McCann ensued:

The fracas erupted into a brawl that saw Gomez, Freddie Freeman and Gerald Laird ejected.

There was a bit of history between Gomez and Maholm. Maholm hit the Milwaukee center fielder on the leg in a June 23 game. Whether the plunking was intentional isn't clear, but Gomez had no doubts. After Wednesday's game, he said he "did a little bit more [than I should have], and I apologize for this. But if you see the replay [from June], they hit me for no reason, and I tried to get it back today. It's the only opportunity that I have, and that's what I did."

Later, Gomez later took to Twitter to apologize more unconditionally:

I would like to apologize first to the fans, MLB, my teammates and the Brewers organization as well as the Braves organization.

- Carlos Gomez (@C_Gomez27) September 26, 2013

The way I carried myself on the field is unacceptable, I should have done better to control myself and set a good example.

- Carlos Gomez (@C_Gomez27) September 26, 2013

I should have not let the situation escalate. I would like to put this behind and do what I love, and that is play baseball at 110%.

- Carlos Gomez (@C_Gomez27) September 26, 2013