Tigers and Yankees Mix it in Baseball Brawl

With the much hyped Floyd Mayweather, Jr. vs Connor McGregor boxing match coming up Saturday, there was a pretty good undercard on August 24th between the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees. Back on July 31st, the teams exchanged hit batsmen, and some bad blood remained from that game. The situation exploded in the August 24th game, the finale of a three game set between the two teams.

Tigers starter Michael Fullmer hit hot-hitting Gary Sanchez on the hands with a pitch in the fifth inning, and while Sanchez was clearly not happy, nothing more than dirty looks occurred. Not so in the bottom of the sixth, when New York pitcher Tommy Kahnle threw a pitch behind Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera. Kahnle was ejected, which led to an argument with the umpire by furious Yankees manager Joe Girardi, who was then tossed himself. When Aroldis Chapman was brought in to pitch, Cabrera and catcher Austin Romine had words, which led to fists, which led to a bench clearing brawl. All in all, the benches would clear two more times, there would be four hit batsmen, and a total of eight ejections before the game finally ended in a 10-6 Detroit victory.

The two teams have competed play against each other this season, but this won’t be forgotten. The clubs both have spring training in Florida, so will likely play an exhibition game or two at that time, but this thing will probably linger into the 2018 regular season.