In baseball of the 21st Century, there is mere anger, displays of "displeasure," including the throwing of inanimate objects, like clothes, bats, water buckets, and the dreaded pointing of fingers at rookies who dare to show up veterans after hitting homeruns...(see: "Jose Ramirez, Minnesota Twins, 2015).
...and then there is the real deal, where grown men actually do something with their righteous anger...unlike our calm and sedate MLB fights we have presently, there was a caveman-like era when Minnesota and Detroit players literally hated each other.
Ah, the humanity...if you have children in the room, you'd best think twice of scrolling forward...what follows is "Gangs Of New York"-type stuff...
Note "Freedom Fighter" Al Williams, center.
Must have felt like a lemonade festival, compared
to engaging in Central American insurgent dust ups.
The May 14, 1982 brawl (box score link) between the Twins and the Tigers at old Tigers Stadium in Detroit has been documented quite well already. Most recently, Rachel Blount posted an excellent account in her June 29, 2010 piece in the Star Tribune, The GIFs here merely reinforce what a real, visceral melee it really was. I've always maintained it helped form the rich fabric of the Twins-Tigers history, which includes some merciless beatings via Detroit over the young Twins in the 1981-86 period, and culminating in a most satisfying ALCS win for the Twins over the Motowners in 1987.
In the end, perhaps the greatest prize these GIFs reveal is that Jesus Vega , no 21, actually did something real and passionate on the field, for once at least--to belie the otherwise pacifist tone of his given birth name. His bat didn't necessarily do his talking for him, to reverse the baseball adage
Pete Redfern started off the nasty fun with this hit on Chet Lemon in the Fourth Inning. Note Pete Filson, no. 23, sauntering in so very casually at the very end of the frame, from the right.
Ron Davis kept the smoking embers of anger hot with his tatoo job on Enos Cabel in the 11th.
I'm actually surprised Davis had that kind of control, his everlasting infamy coloring my memory.
Breath in the ensuing mayhem, all ye street fighting men and ladies. I'm only glad ol' Sparky Anderson wasn't seriously roughed up during the hi-jinks. Alas, "Captain Hook" lived to tell the tale, clear up through 2010, in fact. See You Tube for the full and unbridled banquet of violence.
"So long, everybody!" - Herb Carneal
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