…but I hate New Jersey as well.

I was all pumped about going to see Citizen’s Bank park, but the entire state of New Jeresy was flooded out. A four hour trip to my girlfriend’s parent’s house in Jersey too us nine. We arrived at 7 p.m. No game in Philadelphia.

By the way, morning shift should be called morning shit. I’m still bitter about it a week later.

Since you are all dying to know know, here is my take on the fight.

Arroyo hits a lot of guys. ARod is a guy (presumably). He got hit. Rather than either charge the mound, or jog down to first, ARod yelled at Arroyo. Varitek did what catchers do and got between ARod and Arroyo. Homeplate umpire Bruce Froemming arrived on the scene. After that, the TV camera was focused on ARod and he said:

Fuck you, fuck you motherfucker! Come on!

I’m sure Varitek wasn’t saying “Golly gee, you sure look upset Mr. Rodriguez,” but I have no idea what he was saying. Eitherway, this illicted Tek to take the Yankee 3rd baseman up on his offer. There was shoving, then a head lock (Varitek jammed his wrist) and everyone gathered for some tea and crumpets.

This is when a leisurely day at the park turned ugly. Yankee pitcher Tanyon Sturtze got to the scrum, headlocked Gabe Kapler (probably the Budwiser Stupidest Decision of the Game) and dragged him out of the pile. Right into David Ortiz and Trot Nixon. Sturtze wrestled with Kapler while he got taken down by him, Ortiz, and Nixon. Sturtze got cut behind the ear, and jammed his pinky, went out to pitch the bottom of the 3rd, and got shelled.

My opinion is that Sturtze was probably most in the wrong in pulling a Mickey Rivers move on Kapler. Everyone else did things that were SOP in baseball (although I did lose some respect for ARod for him waiting until there was someone to separate him from Varitek to challenge the catcher.)

Finally, I don’t have a link because I got this second hand, but I was told that ARod said that “things like this happen when you hate a team”, referring to the Red Sox. This was of course a change in tune from when he almost gave up $50 million to come to Boston.

My reaction to that is that what he says doesn’t matter. To be honest, I don’t blame ARod from making comments like that. He’s on a new team who has a volatile rivalry, and he would have to be a pretty cold hearted bastard not to buy into that (see: Curt Schilling’s comments about the Yankees). Also, he probably feels disrespected by Larry Lucchino (reportedly, ARod was so disenfranchised with Lucky that Tom Warner had to pick up negotiations with the Rangers), and felt like the Red Sox didn’t try hard enough to get him out of Texas after Orza ruled. I don’t care that he hates the Red Sox, but I also don’t blame him.

Now that my head is clear, I have to hunt down Jay Jaffe and tell him Dewey’s House is my site with a brick (kidding, Sully does yeoman’s work here), and get excited to see Curt “Burt” Schilling vs. David “Son of Sam” Borkowski on the ole NESN.