July 24th, 2004: Jason Varatek catching for Boston and Alex Rodriguez batting for New York.
The pitch: strikes A-Rod in the back and the Yankees 3rd basemen is angry. He says something that brings similar feelings to the mind of Varatek. The result is well, what has been immortalized as 'the glove sandwich'.
At that point, we didn't even know that Alex Rodriguez was cheating but to date the Red Sox still hated him. Now at that point it was not clear whether or not Boston pitcher: Bronson Arroyo intended to hit the Yankees lightning rod of a roster member but nearly a decade later the intention behind a similar situation was clear.
On the first batter of the top of the 2nd inning, Ryan Dempster intentionally hit Alex Rodriguez. Red Sox fans were thrilled Joe Girardi was not.
As I said it was the top of the 2nd inning. The Red Sox had just scored and were up 2-0 with Alex Rodriguez coming to bat to lead off the inning. Ryan Dempster was pitching. Now in his career Dempster has had no history of intentionally hitting players and frankly he has not been on the Sox long enough to develop the 'Yankees die' mentality that his new town has known for so long. But for so many years Dempster has been a major leaguer and for so many years he has known that Alex Rodriguez is not a well, role model.
So for Dempster after A-Rod was revealed to have been cheating AGAIN, the motivation was there.
On the first pitch of the at bat, Dempster came inside on an obvious attempt to bean his target. After A-Rod managed to get out of the way on pitch number one, Demptser then fired at Rodriguez on both the 2nd and 3rd pitches...but no intervention was issued so Boston's pitcher was left with one last chance to do what he obviously wanted to do.
Long story short it was on that 4th pitch that he connected. Almost immediately, Fenway exploded with atmosphere as Dempster, Farrell, and CC Sabathia were all issued prompt warnings. But Yankees GM Joe Girardi was not satisfied. He flew out of his dugout sprinting towards home-plate all while screaming about how Dempster should be tossed.
He wasn't but when it all ended Girardi was tossed. It was the second time this year that the Yankees GM had been tossed out of a game and the 23rd time in his career that Girardi himself had been ejected.
Nonetheless even with their manager sitting back in the clubhouse, the Yankees rallied in the 2nd scoreing A-Rod from second before tying the game later on. 1 inning later they would take the lead to make it 3-2. As it stands no retribution has been made although ESPN's broadcast team has made predictions that the benches will clear at least one more time in the game.
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