Yankees vs Devil Rays – Crazed Spring Training
Spring training is often a time for both veterans and rookies to get some much-needed practice before the regular season begins. While there are the occasional fiery rookie trying to make the team, for the most part, Spring Training is pretty tame. All of that changed when the Yankees played the Devil Rays on Tuesday.
Four days before Tuesday’s game, a D-Rays hopeful collided with the Yankees reserve receiver, breaking his wrist. Joe Girardi was anything but moderate after the play, saying it was “unnecessary” for a Spring Training game. Also present was Shelley Duncan, who hinted that the D-Rays’ display of aggression might not be the last between the two teams.
Fast-forward to Tuesday: In the first inning, the impending eruption was already brewing when Yankees pitcher Heath Phillips intentionally hit a D-Rays batter. Then, in the second inning, all hell broke loose. Yankees Shelley Duncan rounded first after an infield error, only to take off to second base after hesitating for a brief moment. The hesitation clearly cost him when second baseman Aki Iwamura received the ball long before Duncan reached second. But, it looked like Duncan wouldn’t do it any other way as he proceeded to make a sharp slide toward second base with his spikes atop Iwamura’s leg. Duncan was instantly kicked out of the game, prompting a fight to clean up the bench.
This is where the powers that be in baseball must step in and act. A slip like Duncan’s, while protective in nature, was a blatant attempt to injure an opposing player. Yes, his teammate had been injured in a previous game, but it was not intentional. MLB needs to differentiate between good, hard play, and malicious intent. If not, America’s pastime will see a lot more of what happened between the Yankees and the Devil Rays.
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