The fallout from last weekend’s brawl between the Red Sox and Yankees continues to be felt. The league handed out its discipline on Thursday, and it seemed a little heavy handed towards the Olde Towne Team.

Bob Watson, the Major League Baseball Vice President of on-fieldoperations (aka the Dean of Discipline) spoke up on Thursday to lay down the law.

In all the Red Sox were given 10 games’ worth of suspensions, and $5,000 in fines. Jason Varitek got four games and $2,000; Gabe Kapler and Trot Nixon got three games and $1,000 apiece; and Curt Schilling and David Ortiz got $500 each.

The Yankees got suspensions totaling seven games and $3,500 in fines: four games and $2,000 to Alex Rodriguez; three games and $1,000 to Tanyon Sturtze; and $500 to Kenny Lofton.

It’s appropriate that Varitek and Rodriguez had matching penalties, regardless of what A-Rod says. He declared his innocence early in the week, saying he planned to appeal any suspension.

Okay, A-Rod. Varitek just jumped you out of nowhere. Problem is, baseball fans across the nation know what you said to the Sox catcher before you took a glove in the face. You didn’t need to be a lip reader to understand the message.

Watson said the pair were suspended for “inciting a bench-clearing incident and fighting.” The word inciting can have many meanings and A-Rod did as much inciting with his mouth as Varitek did with his glove hand.

And both fought once things boiled over.

The problem here is that Kapler and Nixon were handed out suspension equal to Sturtze. A review of the tape clearly showed Sturtze grabbing Kapler in a choke hold once the fracas began. Ortiz came to his rescue and was pushed aside before Nixon and Kapler wrestled Sturtze to the ground.

You can say all three got three games, but Sturtze is a starting pitcher. The ruling means he won’t even miss a start (if he returns to the Yankees’ rotation anytime soon.)

The fines are irrelevant, pocket change to the major leaguers. They will lose much more in lost wages. The point is the Sox lost three key position players, while the Yankees lost one. It hardly seems fair.

That said, it might be worth every lost game and paid fine. Prior to the little tete-a-tete with the Yanks, the Sox were sleepwalking their way

through the summer. They were an overpaid group of flatliners showing little life. They didn’t win the big games, rarely showed the ability to come back from early deficits, and were generally underachieving.

In hockey, an enforcer will go out and try to fire up a listless team by dropping the gloves. We don’t condone fighting, but such an act often brings a unit to life.

So it could be with the Sox. Varitek didn’t punch A-Rod to light a fire under his teammates, but as a team leader he knew the Sox had had enough sand kicked in their faces for one summer. It was time to make a stand.

He kept Rodriguez from heading after pitcher Bronson Arroyo and brought his teammates together as a result of his actions.

“For protecting a teammate, I’ll take whatever comes,” said Varitek after the game (one of the most impressive wins of the season by the Sox).

Sports are all about paying the price to get the job done. Varitek will now pay the price in the form of a suspension, but in so doing he may be leading his 24 teammates to a job well done.

Lewiston native Tom Caron covers the Red Sox for NESN.