Gary Sheffield: Scary MoFo
By Blake VandeBunte • Sep 19th, 2008 • Category: 2008 season, Armando Galarraga, Casey Fossum, Fausto Carmona, Gary Sheffield, Miguel Cabrera
The Tigers and Indians brawled on Friday night. Things got more than a bit chippy. It kind of got in the way of a brilliant performance by Armando Galarraga. Luckily, the bullpen did their thing and completely collapsed, pretty much handing the Indians a 6-5 win. The Tigers would have been better off letting Galarraga throw 150 pitches.
Apparently, earlier this season Fausto Carmona drilled Gary Sheffield in the knee. Sheffield did not forget this. With the game tied at two in the top of the seventh inning tonight, Miguel Cabrera hit his second two run homer of the night to put the Tigers on top 4-2. Sheffield was up next and was promptly hit on the elbow by Carmona. Sheffield stared Carmona down as he slowly strolled to first. Carmona gave it right back to Sheff and the two had a nice little staring contest. The difference though was clear, Sheffield is scary as hell. The guy seems super intense anyway and is all muscle. Mario Impempa suggested that Sheffield steal second to get some minor payback. Carmona was thinking the same thing and made a throw over to first, chasing Sheffield back. Sheffield then motioned to Carmona to just throw the ball home and yelled some junk. Apparently, Carmona yelled back. Sheffield took exception and threw his helmet to the ground and charged at Carmona. Benches cleared, bullpens cleared. In the end, Carmona, Sheffield, Victor Martinez and Placido Polanco were tossed. Polanco didn’t appear to do much of anything but was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time. There will definitely be plenty of suspensions for both teams as this all shakes out.
The Sheffield/Carmona interchange reminded me of an episode of The (US) Office. I think it was towards the end of season three. Michael takes the whole office to the beach to have them compete in Survivor inspired competitions. The winner of these challenges would take over for him as head of the office. Anyway, one of the competitions had all of the employees wear those fake sumo wrestler outfits. Once match featured Jim and Stanley. Stanley is usually mild mannered (a la Sheff) but this competition (tonight’s fight) just really got him going. Stanley charged at Jim and just had murder in his eyes. Jim says, “Oh my God, I have never seen that look in a man’s eyes…ever. I thought that I might die.” Sheffield had rage in his eyes and he was hot and ready to go. It made for some good TV.
I’ll bet that Sheffield draws a pretty lengthy suspension, five games or so. I bet the same goes for Carmona. I haven’t watched the fight over again, I’ll leave that to MLB for when they are handing out their suspensions and fines. I doubt the Tigers will lose Miguel Cabrera though, as he appeared to be all over the field trying to pull people away from the fight. What about that guy isn’t awesome?
Cabrera led the Tigers offense, heck, he was the Tigers offense tonight. Cabrera crushed his 35th and 36th home runs to tie him with Carlos Quentin for the American League lead. Good stuff. Sadly, Lloyd McClendon reminded all of us why he isn’t a big league manager any longer. McClendon, filling in for the suspended Jim Leyland made a series of puzzling moves with the bullpen that led to the latest Tigers collapse. Casey Fossum gave up a game tying three run jack in the 8th inning. Gary Glover came on (!!!) to finish things off. Apparently the Tigers just wanted to hit that Cleveland night life.
Tonight also marked the first time I have ever heard Mario Impempa reference Rod Allen’s hilarious fight from his playing days in Japan. Check out the video here if you haven’t seen it. It is the height of absurdity.
Now that there has been a fight in this series it makes the rest of the games pretty interesting. If a game ends up being a blowout we could see some retaliation. Stay tuned.
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I think this is great!!! I am glad fausto whooped Sheffield. I can’t think of this happening to a more deserving person - Sheff is racist jerk who deserved this Nolan Ryan-esque beat up! I loved it.
Wow, you really hate Gary Sheffield. He’s had an awful season but the entertainment he provided tonight almost makes it all worth it.
What did Rod say about his fight? It is one of the funniest videos that I have ever seen.
This was hardly a nolan ryan esque beat down like ryan did to robin ventura, crumona gave him a couple of taps on the head, and Sheffield was surrounded and attacked by the indians infielders and arrogant catcher before any Tigers players could get there to intervene. Sheffield doesn’t back down from anyone.
A pitcher who throws mostly down in the strike zone with his sinkerball, like crumona, is a dead giveaway when throwing up and in on the shoulders and head like he did to Sheffield. This was the second time he has hit Sheffield this year, also back in April.
The Tigers need a couple more tough guys like Sheff in the lineup, much like the Tigers of Gibby and Parrish, and before them Willie Horton and Gates Brown.
Great comparison! And love the photo. So will Carmona learn to fear Sheff, as Jim Halpert did to Stanley?
Yeah, I didn’t feel like Sheffield got beat down. The whole thing really made me respect Sheff a little bit more. I still think he’s washed up as a player, but it was nice to see him man up last night. Carmona was clearly throwing at him.
Kenny, Rod just kind of shrugged the comment off. He didn’t say much about it. Too bad.
I just watched the game on replay and I can say that I am proud of Brandon Inge. I always thought he was a bit of a wuss but, he took Victor Martinez down. Good to see that. Also, where was Farnsworth? The only reason that I like the guy is because I was at the game when Farnsworth body slammed the guy from the Royals a few years back.
Inge was fearless with the take down of martinez, from the replay looked like he grabbed him and made martinez trip over Inge’s legs on a reverse take down.
Where was Farnsworthless? good question, The time Kenny is talking about was I think in 2005 pre allstar game when I think Carlos was beaned by a royals pitcher runlevys hernandez and then the benches and bullpen emptied. Farnsworth went after the biggest guy 6′7″ jeremy affeldt picked him up and body slammed him.
Plenty of cheap shots by asdrubal cabrera and the lefty pitcher perez who was not ejected and then pitched later in the game. hope they are also fined and suspended.