Last night the Yankees and the Blue Jays got themselves into one hell of a donnybrook. The entire fight can be seen here. In a very large nutshell;-The Yanks were getting pasted by the Blue Jays last night. Edwin Encarnacion gets plunked after homering earlier in the game. Not a huge deal, this kind of thing happens all the time. Slightly later, Aaron Hill got hit in the same place Encarnacion did and I start to get the feeling it might have been intentional (call me crazy). As Jorge Posada came to the plate later in the game, only those in the stands too young to understand the retribution system in baseball didn't know what was coming next; Jorge was getting beaned and he was getting beaned bad. Blue Jays reliever Jesse Carlson threw a ball behind Posada (which I think is something I would be pleased about if I was posada, but he seemed to feel very strongly opposed). He started to walk to the mound, and mouthed to the pitcher, "You don't want to do that." The pitcher yelled something back, we can assume it was along the lines of, "Actually I did want to do that. In fact, thats exactly what I wanted to do. From my perspective, that whole thing went swimmingly."- or something like that. Posada reached base and went on to score later in the inning. As he crossed home plate, he brushed Carlson (who was covering home like he should have) with his elbow. Posada was immediately tossed by the nearby ump. Carlson took particular exception, and started screaming again at Posada, this time probably something to the effect of, "Hey Mr. Posada, that thing you just did with your elbow right here? I wasn't a huge fan of that." Posada had already been tossed so he figured what the heck, and went after Carlson fists first. The dugouts cleared onto one another, and there were actually some pretty decent punches thrown and landed. Carlson got the worst of it, he wound up with a golf ball-sized, Jorge Posada's knuckle-shaped, welt on his forehead. One would expect the league to levy some pretty hefty fines and suspensions soon on Posada, Carlson, and a few other members of each squad in the coming days/hours.
If Baseball is as American as Apple Pie, then big bench clearing brawls in Baseball are as American as the ice cream that makes it a la mode. In theory you can have one without the other, but separately they aren't much of a dessert. I'm surprised these things don't happen more often. The Yankees and the Blue Jays are division rivals, so they play each other nearly 20 times a season. That's the kind of environment hat bad blood can thrive in - those are nearly ideal conditions.
I just hope that people don't get too worked up about it. I'm sure if you ask Jorge today, he isn't that upset anymore; and neither is Carlson, or anyone else who was involved. The second and final game of this series is tonight, and you can rest assured that the there won't be another fight like that one just because the players are still riled up from yesterday. This was just two men, and then later 50 some-odd men, working out the agression that a 162 game season can bring.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment