The 7 best moments from the Red Sox and Yankees’ brutal brawl

Well, I definitely cannot believe I’m writing two posts about massive brawls in the same day. To kick things off I’ll make the same disclaimer I did about the Padres-Rockies brawl: fighting is bad and you definitely shouldn’t fight. It usually doesn’t solve anything. Capisce? Capisce.

However, baseball fights are so much fun and always have layers to them; never has that been more true than for the Yankees-Red Sox all out BRAWL that happened in Boston on Wednesday night. Oh, were there layers.

The whole thing started (Wednesday night specifically, not the history of the rivalry) when the Yankees’ Tyler Austin slid into second and swept the leg on Brock Holt just enough to be suspicious. When that happened, the benches and bullpens both cleared but the confrontation petered out by the time everyone got out to second base. It was more a highly charged chat in the middle of the field than a brawl.

The umpires judged that the play wasn’t a double play in progress so the Red Sox received no outs on the play. It seemed like Austin’s next plate appearance might include a throw behind him or a bean, but Heath Hembree didn’t engage. Issue over until the next game, right?

So, so wrong.

Austin’s next plate appearance was against Sox reliever Joe Kelly, and Kelly was not as lenient as Hembree. He tried to hit Austin once, missed, then tried again and made contact. After which things truly devolved into some street fight-level scrapping. Here are all of the best moments from the brawl that confirmed this rivalry is back in fine shape.

Kelly not even getting the job done on his first try is such a Joe Kelly thing to do. He didn’t miss the second time, but that he even needed a second attempt is ridiculous and hilarious. Austin probably thought he was free and clear because Kelly can’t aim, but nope. He got plunked anyway.

Usually, if a batter hesitates but blatantly intends to rush the mound, the opposing catcher will do something about it. Vasquez ... kind of? ... sort of? ... tried? He hesitated like he wanted nothing to do with what was about to happen, and then kind of went to grab Austin by the shoulder like he was seeing a friend in public and wanted to tap them on the back and say hi. He stepped up later in the fight but Austin had time to slam his bat and walk slowly towards Kelly before Vasquez made a move, which is gold.

Little too late to be tugging on his jersey there buddy. The helmet is off and he’s on a mission.

Usually, baseball brawls have one or two punches that actually land. Maybe a glancing blow here or there. That was ... not the case in this one. Kelly was fully on top of Austin to start things off, and the Yankees got in some licks of their own on Kelly later on. The latter would end up with a ripped shirt and a bloody lip, so this was absolutely a legit donnybrook.

“Stop fighting, small people around me!” - Aaron Judge, probably.

Judge is so massive compared to many of the other players on the field, towering actually, that he stands out no matter what. He took it upon himself to try and separate the two sides when things were getting really rough. The look on his face screams: I don’t want to be standing here right now and y’all are messy as hell so please just stop to make it easy.

Spoiler: they did not stop.

Austin got absolutely rocked to start, but bounced back and seemed to land some throws of his own to even things up. His true highlight happened late in the fight though, once everyone had settled but the original instigators, and he was acting like a boxer who was trying to convince his opponent he had all the energy in the world to keep going.

His strategy was not to continue trying to charge forward but to acquiesce to the teammates holding him back, take a few steps back to show them he wasn’t going to do anything stupid, then did the stupid thing once their guard was down by trying to charge forward again. The whole time he was bouncing up and down as if he was defending a flyweight championship.

New York, Boston, it doesn’t matter. You have definitely seen That Guy start a fight over someone saying they don’t think Entourage is the best show on television. He’s a bar fight stalwart.

The bullpens racing in will always be funny. It will literally never not be funny. Especially, in this case, because they already had to run once and didn’t get to even fight that time. That’s a lot of running for relievers! Good effort guys.