I was fired up to write about this, but the Chest Rockwell beat me to it, and made my points.
The quick and dirty of it all is McDonald got a yellow card for a slightly “vigorous” tackle in last week’s game against Chivas. The referee saw the foul, and judged it to be just a yellow card offense. MLS has decided that regardless of what the guy (who’s job it is to make these decisions) says, McDonald needs additional punishment.
Conspiratorially, I think that has more to do with punishing McDonald for the swearing at the referee on a nationally televised game. Same for Danny Cruz’s fine, which was said to be for simulation. He was yelling at the linesman all game. So, I think that has more to do with MLS saying, “Hey, stop sullying our image on the national stage.” What do you think about my theory?