BOSTON (AP) – It was at once comic and ugly, Popeye vs. Pedro in a brawl that epitomized the heat of the game.

For more than half a century, Don Zimmer has been in the middle of almost everything in baseball. So no one should have been surprised to see him in the middle of things again Saturday when the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox played hardball close to the head.

Yet even by the 72-year-old Zimmer’s standards, this clash was a wonderment to watch.

There he was, the bald and bejowled Yankees coach racing around the mob of players on the field in the fourth inning and throwing a wild left hook at Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez. And there was Martinez, 41 years younger, grabbing Popeye by the ears and tossing him headfirst to the ground.

There was nothing funny initially about this little brawl as Zimmer lay on the ground with Yankees clustered around him, worried about his health. Zimmer, after all, once was so seriously beaned while in the minor leagues that he had surgery on his head. The story about having a metal plate in his head is only half true.

“The fact is they filled those holes up with what they call tantalum buttons that act kind of like corks in a bottle,” Zimmer wrote in his autobiography a couple of years ago. “I can therefore truthfully state that all of those players who played for me through the years and thought I sometimes managed like I had a hole in my head were wrong. I actually have four holes in my head!”

Zimmer had to have a hole in his head to go after Martinez. And Martinez had to have a few screws loose to throw Zimmer down instead of just stepping out of the way.

“I think Zim’s a little old for that,” Boston manager Grady Little said.

He wasn’t the only one who thought that.

Both teams got caught up in the emotion of the moment after Boston’s Manny Ramirez started shouting with bat in hand after a high, slightly inside fastball by New York’s Roger Clemens.

Truth be told, the pitch wasn’t close to hitting Ramirez and he had no business taking issue with Clemens. More likely, Ramirez simply was making a fuss to try to get Clemens thrown out after an earlier umpire’s warning to both benches following a pitch by Martinez.

The whole nasty affair, which loomed large in a game that New York won 4-3 to take a 2-1 lead in the ALCS, started taking shape in the top of the fourth. It doesn’t take much to ignite the fiercest rivalry in baseball, and all it took this time was a fastball by Martinez behind the head of Karim Garcia, nicking him on the shoulder.

“There’s no question in my mind that Pedro hit him on purpose,” Yankees’ manager Joe Torre said. “I didn’t care for that.”

None of the Yankees did, especially the fiery Zimmer.

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AP-ES-10-11-03 2027EDT