Yanks, Rays Don’t Play Nice at Spring Training

By Chris Mottram
The Yankees and Rays got into a little bit of a skirmish during their spring training game today, but based on the photos I’ve seen, it doesn’t look like it was much. But whatever it was, or wasn’t, this is what started it all:
[img=http://i.tsn.com/i/photos/20080312/87522.jpg]
That would be 6’5”, 215-pound Shelley Duncan coming in just a little bit high on 5’9”, 175-pound Akinori Iwamura. The whole thing is explained in Peter Abraham’s liveblog of the game (Via FanIQ):
[quote="Peter Abraham"]Shelley Duncan (of course) started the top of the second with a single. He tried to go to second as the ball rolled behind third base and was out by five feet. Duncan slid in with his spikes exceedingly high at Akinori Iwamura and was tagged out. He was immediately ejected.
Tampa Bay right fielder Jonny Gomes raced over and tackled Duncan and the benches cleared. There didn’t seem to be any punches thrown.
Gomes has been ejected as well. So were Bobby Meacham and Kevin Long.
I would think Duncan would get suspended for what he did. It was pretty blatant.[/quote]
Needless to say, this is the most exciting thing that has ever occurred in the brief (and pointless) history of liveblogging spring training baseball games.
Update: Here’s the video, thanks to Awful Announcing:

“It’s like the scene from Anchorman, when the rival news teams are going at each other.” Huh? That was actually nothing at all like that scene in Anchorman, other than the fact that the players (sorta) made physical contact with each other.↵