A Bizarre Brawl
By Joe Davis
The mood was set: Summer Saturday baseball. The Rivals:Red Sox vs Yankees. Who could ask for anymore? Well, how about some bloody street-fighting?
So here's the blow-by-blow: After going down 3-0 in the third inning: Bronson Arroyo hit Alex Rodríguez with a pitch. While A-Rod was going down to first he said some words for Arroyo: "F*ck you! F*ck you!," A-Rod shouted. Varitek, protecting his pitcher, got between them both. After exchanging some words, A-Rod invited "Come on!" Varitek accepted the invitation with a forearm to A-Rod's face. Then baseball-turned-boxing-turned WWF wrestling as A-Rod then put Varitek in a headlock. Varitek got out of it and picked up A-Rod by his crotch (Ouch!). The rest of the Sawx quickly came around the two - blocking anything from happening while A-Rod was still in Varitek's grasp. The smack-down then morphed into a full-throttle hockey-style brawl.
Yankee starter Tanyon Sturtze came around the group and headed towards Gabe Kapler, putting him in a headlock. David Ortiz soon grabbed Sturtze and threw him down on the ground with Kapler attached. As soon as they were on the ground, Lynn Jones, first base coach for the Red Sox restrained already-suspended David Ortiz from attacking Sturtz. Trot Nixon then joined Kapler in the beat down on Sturtze, who, Kapler apparently believed "deserved it" as he demonstrated his anger in the dugout when he found out Sturtze was not ejected.
Phew! That might be enough for most people but this was only the top of the third inning! Plenty of baseball to be played right? Of course!
The Red Sox responded with a 2 run 3rd inning.
In the bottom of the fourth, Boston went ahead 4-3.
In the 6th inning, the Yankees scored 6 runs and the Red Sox scored 4. The total time of the 6th inning alone was 67 minutes (1 Hour, 7 minutes for you Yankee fans).
Ruben Sierra led off in the 7th inning with a solo blast over the Monster.
Then in the bottom of the 9th, Mariano Rivera on to pitch, Nomar hit a double for his 3rd hit of the night. Two batters later, 1 out for Kevin Millar, he hits a single to right center. Millar had 4 hits in the game. David McCarty came in for Millar, for a speed improvement and defensive ability. McCarty never needed to field because Bill Mueller, reigning AL 2003 Batting Champion came to the plate. Bill Mueller launched a two run blast into the bullpen for a walk-off home run. In the bitter end, it was a Sox victory 11-10.
Varitek shows the team how to have heart
You don't need a captain to have a leader and Jason Varitek proved that today. When Varitek watched the winning home run in the clubhouse he ran onto the field and threw himself into the party at home plate. Having stood up for his teammate and sacrificed himself to make A-Rod and Sturtz look stupid, the ultimate victory must be that much sweeter. Especially since he'll be sitting out the next few...
