7.25.2004
B PLEASE
I've been to a lot of baseball games in my life but sometimes I lament the fact that I've never seen something historic, like a record-breaking hit or a no-hitter. I have, however, seen some fantastic brawls. A couple years ago, I saw seventy-something Sox pitching coach Tony Cloninger grab a young Oriole by the collar, take him into a headlock and then proceed to punch the crap out of him. I thought I saw Don Zimmer die during the playoffs last year. Today, though, something happened that will re-calibrate how I see and judge baseball brawls from here to eternity. It all began when Yankee 3B Alex Rodriguez somehow took his bitch-ness to a whole new level, jawing at pitcher Bronson Arroyo after getting tapped with an innocent, gentle Arroyo curve. F-bombs were dropped, fingers were pointed and next thing you know, players are rolling around on the ground, A-Rod and Varitek are beating each other up and Yanks pitcher Tanyon Sturtze is walking off the field with blood trailing from his ear. The crowd erupted into this "Yankees Suck!" chant and the mother in front of me starts shaking her fist and joining in. Her son, who was about seven and a Yankee fan, protested to this, first imploring his mom to stop, then shaking her and finally slapping her across the face until she would stop. It was unbelievable.
