(a Toronto police officer searches for the last remaining shred of John Gibbons’ dignity)
From the Toronto Star’s Shi Davidi.
Left-hander Ted Lilly and Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons fought in the tunnel between the dugout and clubhouse after an angry exchange on the pitching mound during Monday’s 12-10 loss to the Oakland Athletics.
Canadian Press photographer Aaron Harris, one of a handful of photographers to witness the incident, said Gibbons, five-foot-11 and 195 pounds, came down the steps and went right at Lilly, six-foot-one and 190 pounds.
The two began wrestling, clutching at each other’s shirts before security team trainer George Poulis and several Blue Jays jumped in to break it up as a bewildered crowd of 28,280 looked on.
Harris described the scene as mayhem.
There’s still 6 weeks of baseball left to play, plenty of time for Gibbons to punch whoever thought it would be a good idea to give A.J. Burnett that much money.
There are many valuable lessons today’s MLB stars can learn from the kids taking part in the Little League World Series. One would be the importance of not saying “fuck” into an open microphone (though strangely, the organizers of said tourney find uttering an expletive as serious an offense as assaulting a child).
The other would be the significance of calling for the ball.
The Diamondbacks are throwing the ball all over the park at SBC tonight ; even Jeff Francis can’t stand to watch.
Kevin Mitchell was on BBTN this evening and was asked to compare his April ’89 barehanded catch in left field off the bat of Ozzie Smith (ranked as the no. 2 “Web Gem” in Giants history) to David Wright’s oft-replayed right-handed grab in San Diego from August 9, 2005.
That wasn’t no catch. C’mon, man, running in the outfield, from home plate for a ball, to the infield, it’s like two different things. What he did was like catching a ball on the hop. You don’t compare those two catches.
I am going to try to restrain myself from a angry rant, but that play was Utleys, he called for it and had the ball in his glove , but that frustrated wannabe football player Aaron Rowand tried to hotdog the play and as much as wishing injury on a player is not very nice, if somebody got hurt in that collision, better Rowand than Utley. I dont know what the extent of Rowands injury may be, but this one would be a direct result of carelessly stupid overaggresive play and Shane Victorino will more than adequately track down the same fly balls Rowand would and bring more to the plate.
Having slept on this, I would like to rescind my accusation that Rowand was “hotdogging” the play that resulted in the scary collision with Utley, but will say that Rowand is just carelessly overagressive to the point of obliviousness and this wasnt a fluke. I have witnessed Rowands numerous near-crashes into teammates on the field and saw him as a train wreck waiting to happen.