ST. PETERSBURG – At second base yesterday afternoon, the controversy between the Yankees and Rays exploded.
Four days earlier, the teams were involved in a controversial home-plate collision, resulting in a Yankees catcher breaking his wrist and the teams disputing whether the play was acceptable. Yesterday at Progress Energy Park, Saturday’s flare-up became an eruption, resulting in a second-inning brawl that saw four people ejected and could have possible discipline coming.
This time, it was the Yankees who had the controversial play. With Shelley Duncan providing it with a cleat-up slide into Akinori Iwamura that helped spark the melee, and prompted Tampa manager Joe Maddon to blast the slide as “borderline criminal.”
“The other day when we were playing in Tampa, that play you saw at home plate was a good hard baseball play. What you saw today is the definition of a dirty play,” Maddon said. “There’s no room for that in our game. It’s contemptible. It’s wrong. It’s borderline criminal and I could not believe they did that.”
On Saturday, Tampa’s Elliot Johnson slammed into Francisco Cervelli, breaking his wrist and causing Joe Girardi to label it “uncalled for.” There was curiosity about whether the two teams would have an incident yesterday, and actually before the game, an MLB spokesman said both Girardi and Maddon were addressed by the umpires. What’s more, the spokesman said Tuesday that representatives from Bud Selig’s office talked with Yanks GM Brian Cashman and Tampa executive VP of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. MLB insisted that talk was prompted by neither team, but Cashman claimed the Rays had alerted the commissioner’s office about the potential for problems, which is what prompted the warning.
Either way, in the first inning yesterday, Yanks pitcher Heath Phillips nicked Tampa’s Evan Longoria’s chest and was immediately ejected, even though nobody seemed to view it as intentional. The next inning, though, Duncan hit a liner off Longoria’s glove and tried to take second on the play.
Even Duncan admits that “the ball beat me quite a bit,” and he proceeded to go in cleat-high, with a photo even showing his cleat into Iwamura’s leg. Duncan said he was trying to jar the ball out of the second baseman’s glove.
“There’s no malicious intent at all,” Duncan said. “There’s nothing dirty about it in my eyes. There’s no spikes up in my eyes.”
But even the photo revealed that the cleat was toward Iwamura’s throwing hand, not his glove.
“It was a dirty play,” Tampa’s B.J. Upton said. “It was just flat-out dirty, period.”
“That was a blatant attempt to hurt Aki. And it was set up. It was premeditated. It’s all of the above,” said Maddon, who was adamant that Duncan should be suspended. “I mean, I don’t know what’s the difference between that and a high stick in hockey, but it was that bad.”
Then the brawl started.
Tampa Bay right fielder Jonny Gomes raced in and shoved Duncan, prompting a benches-clearing scrum on the infield that Rays outfielder Carl Crawford called “pretty heated.” Duncan and Gomes were both ejected, along with Yanks coaches Kevin Long and Bobby Meachem.
Not surprisingly, the Yankees wouldn’t classify Duncan’s slide as dirty, though Meachem admitted that Duncan’s “front leg was high.”
“Shelley has been taught as a player, when he’s going to be out, go after the ball and that is what he did,” Girardi said. “Shelley made a hard aggressive slide.”
Asked if it was dirty, Girardi said he wanted to see the replay. He admitted that if he found it to be dirty, he would speak to Duncan.
Iwamura only had a small cut on his knee as a result of the spiking, saying he felt fortunate he wasn’t really injured. The teams play each other 18 times this season, though, and even Gomes admitted yesterday that he thought it would “probably” continue during the year (actually, they also play again twice more this spring).
“I think we’re going to play the game a little harder,” Jorge Posada said.
Additional reporting by Joel Sherman.
Elevation of hostilities Events leading to yesterday’s bench-clearing fracus
Saturday
In the top of the ninth, Rays 2B Elliot Johnson barreled Yankees’ Francisco Cervelli at the plate. Cervelli broke his
right wrist. Yanks manager Joe Girardi said “I don’t think it’s the time to run over a catcher in spring training.”
Sunday
Don Zimmer disagreed, saying “The plate was blocked and our guy bowled him over. What’s that got to do with spring training? That’s the way to play the game.”
Yesterday
Bottom of the first: Yankee pitcher Heath Phillips hits Rays 3B Evan Longoria with
runners on 1st and 3rd, and was ejected.
Yesterday
Top of second: Yankees Shelley Duncan slides into second with his cleats up, into Rays 2B Akinori Iwamura , and was called out. Jonny Gomes then raced in from right field and shoved Duncan, causing the benches to clear. Duncan, Gomes, Yankee hitting coach Kevin Long and 3B coach Bobby Meachem were ejected.