When you take a trip down memory lane to the heart of Yankee country, you don’t expect the bold and the restless to emerge from the visitors’ dugout.
In three games, that is exactly what happened when the Boston Red Sox came to the House Next to the House that Ruth Built. The Yankees promptly caved in and lost all three games.
Though threats to hit the unpopular Papi railed across the rags of the Big Apple, only CC Sabathia took umbrage at the home runs and assorted doubles to plunk David Ortiz in the final game of the three games New York would like to forget.
Ortiz laughed all the way to first base.
Joe Girardi, looking like a fashion model for AARP’s tough guy/old coot line, swore that Ortiz was courting disaster for showing up bad pitchers for making bad pitches. Alas, the talk seemed only to inspire the Red Sox pitchers.
Not known for their colorful antics, the Red Sox pitchers are still a dangerous group of men who foam at the mouth during tough times and Bronx visits.
Jon Lester nearly sawed off the leg of Red Sox tormentor Mark Teixeira and also gave Russell Martin a blow with a pitch to the body. For those who forgot, Martin had turned down a chance to sign with the Sox in the offseason, preferring the Yankees, and the less said about Teixeira who turned down the Sox offer several years ago to go with the Yankees, the better we feel. Diehard Red Sox fans will never forget the insult Teixeira gave the Boston fans.
In the second game of the series, Tim Wakefield hit Robinson Cano and brushed back several others with his nutty knuckleball.
In the finale of the series on Thursday night, after the rains dampened Yankee spirit to a puddle, Josh Beckett hit, in no particular order, Curtis Granderson, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez.
Beckett apparently believes in only hitting the best.
Before the Yankee series, John Lackey put the baseball on a couple of batters in the Oakland-Boston game on Sunday. Lackey’s kerplunks were deemed not deliberate by the home plate umpire despite a warning earlier that no beans were to be balled.
Those wild men of the Red Sox staff may be on to something.
Once upon a time, there used to be phrase uttered by Noel Coward that only “mad dogs and Englishmen” went out in the midday sun. It now appears the mad dogs have joined up with Red Sox starters.
And step aside, Mr. Coward, these Red Sox pitchers are willing to plunk you midday or at nighttime.
Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com