BOSTON – The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry turned even uglier on Thursday night as the Bombers came up empty and a fan got a piece of Gary Sheffield.
Sheffield became enraged at a fan in the front row of the right field seats at Fenway Park who made contact with him while he reached to pick up Jason Varitek’s eighth-inning triple. The hit, which capped a three-run inning and led the Sox to an 8-5 victory, rolled along the waist-high fence before Sheffield finally caught up to it.
The fan’s intentions were debatable – he could have been reaching over the wall to pick up the ball or he could have been hoping to hit Sheffield – but Sheffield reacted violently, landing a glancing two-handed punch on the male fan while still holding the baseball in his right hand. A woman standing next to the fan fell backward, though it didn’t appear that the right fielder made contact with her.
After throwing the ball back to the infield, Sheffield went back to the fence to confront the fan, before Fenway security jumped into the stands and members of the Yankee bullpen ran over to pull him back. The fan and one of his companions apparently were ejected from the park by police. Sheffield remained in the game and led off the top of the ninth inning with a double off the Green Monster.
After the game, Joe Torre was just about as upset over the incident as Sheffield, saying fan interventions have gone too far.
“These people shouldn’t be out on the street let alone at a ball game,” the manager said.
Describing the incident, Torre said, “Somebody came out of the stands and whacked him.”
Sheffield credited himself for not letting the situation get out of hand.
“It could have been worse if I didn’t hold my composure,” said Sheffield, who claimed he did not throw any punches. “He hit me in the mouth. I don’t know if he did it intentionally but it felt like it.”
The crowd of Yankees in the right field corner immediately conjured up memories of Game 3 of the 2003 ALCS, when then-Bombers Karim Garcia and Jeff Nelson brawled with a bullpen groundskeeper; that was the same day that Pedro Martinez tossed Don Zimmer to the ground during a melee between the teams.
Thursday night’s fracas wasn’t preceded by similar venom, though the game was hotly contested as Randy Johnson got touched for five runs and five hits (including three homers) in his first Fenway start as a Yankee.
The Big Unit left after seven innings, but Tom Gordon – who fell apart in the eighth inning of Game 5 at Fenway last fall – stumbled against Boston again, giving up a single to Johnny Damon and an RBI double to Edgar Renteria before Varitek hit the triple that incited the latest nasty incident in this rivalry.
The last time Johnson started at Fenway was April 10, 1998, when he dominated the Sox – in their home-opener, no less – and struck out 15 batters over eight innings (he didn’t get a win though, as the Mariners bullpen blew the 7-2 lead he left behind and Seattle lost, 9-7).
Varitek is the only current Sox player who was in the dugout that day, but while he went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts as a rookie catcher, he roped one of the three home runs off the Unit last night, tying the game at 5 in the fourth inning. It wasn’t the most homers Johnson has allowed in a game – he served up four to the Braves on June 20, 1999 – but it was the second straight ugly outing for the lefty, who got bailed out by a late-game rally against the Orioles Saturday.
Renteria’s third-inning two-run homer came on just such a pitch, and the shortstop’s drive bounced off a fan seated above the lip of the Green Monster before falling back on to the field.
The umpires quickly ruled that a home run and no one argued, but that seemed to be the only call all night that wasn’t contested.
The arguing started early, as first base ump Brian Runge called leadoff hitter Tony Womack out after first baseman Kevin Millar swiped at – and clearly missed – the second baseman’s elbow when Renteria’s throw pulled him up the line.
Womack and Torre disputed the call with Runge, but their protests were meek compared to the explosion from the Sox dugout in the fourth inning. With Boston leading 4-1, starter Bronson Arroyo was faced with an excruciating two-out situation: bases loaded, 3-and-2 count and Sheffield at the plate.
Arroyo threw what appeared to be a gutsy, exceptional pitch, his curveball breaking right down the middle of the plate at Sheffield’s belt, freezing the right fielder with his bat on his shoulder.
When plate ump Greg Gibson called ball four, however, Sox hitting coach Ron Jackson and manager Terry Francona started yelling. After listening for a few moments, Gibson ejected Jackson. Francona ran on to the field – perhaps thinking he’d been tossed – and when Jackson realized he was gone, he sprinted toward Gibson and had to be physically restrained from going after the ump by Francona and other coaches. Francona ultimately joined Jackson after being thrown out for arguing balls and strikes an inning later.
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AP-NY-04-14-05 2356EDT
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