Major League Baseball doled out stiff punishments today for Thursday night's brawl between the Red Sox and Rays at Fenway Park, suspending eight players in all, five Rays, three Sox.
Outfielder Coco Crisp got the longest, a 7-game suspension (appealing), Jon Lester got 5 games (not appealing, as it will only move his next start back a day), and Sean Casey 3 games (not decided whether he will appeal yet).
For Tampa Bay, James Shields got 6 games, Jonny Gomes 5 games, Edwin Jackson 5 games, Carl Crawford 4 games, and Akinori Iwamura 3 games.
I am quite shocked that Jon Lester was suspended, as it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Whatever he may have done didn't warrant the umpires to eject him from the game, so why suspend him? And for five games? That seems out of whack to me.Jonny Gomes is a punk. Not only did he precipitate the drama in spring training against the Yankees, but he was throwing bombs when he rushed the field. Navarro not only tackled Coco (which some think was in order to protect Shields) but he choke slammed him to the ground, held him there while Gomes, Crawford and Shields went off on him.
Crawford is a coward too, pulling on Coco's hair and scratching him like a little girl. They had Coco under control and all they needed to do was hold him down. But no. Crawford needed to get in some cheap shots and slide knee first into the back of Coco's head. Coco was none too happy about that.
"I charged the mound. [Shields] tried to hit me with a punch," Crisp said. "I'm not upset at all. We fought. That's all it is. There were some cheap shots there. [Carl] Crawford came sliding in. I don't know why he was pulling hair, scratching. After that it was three, four guys on one."
After the game Shields said that teams have been kicking the crap out of them for the last decade and it won't happen on his watch.
"I protected my own players and that's what we need to do around here," Shields said. "We've been getting stomped around the last 10 years and it isn't going to happen anymore. I had to let them know early and let them know right away."
You're right, Shields: the Yanks, Jays, Sox, and Orioles have all kicked the crap out of you the last 10 years because you've been an awful organization, have had terrible ownership that wouldn't spend any money, and have done nothing to make your team into a contender. It's taken 10 years to have some semblance of team unity, and if you have to throw whiff hardcore on a haymaker to Coco to show that unity to the rest of the league then so be it.
But beware what you wish for.
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