I watch a lot of baseball, and I can't remember seeing two guys assume the position of boxers and then start throwing punches—until José Ramírez of the Guardians confronted Tim Anderson of the White Sox at second base a few days ago. This may not be the best video, but it's surely the best live audio "call" of the play, or fight, courtesy of Tom Hamilton, the Cleveland radio guy:
On January 23, 1972, I happened to be at Williams Arena, in Minneapolis, for the Gopher-Buckeye basketball game that ended in a brawl. When I got home, my dad had 10 million questions about what had happened, because he'd been listening on the radio and the announcer, Ray Christensen, could not bring himself to describe the riot. According to my dad, he just did his imitation of a morally shocked Scandinavian, repeating over and over again such phrases as "Oh my, this is terrible!" and "This isn't what college athletics is about!" (Actually, it wasn't an imitation: Ray was Scandinavian, and shocked.)
Cleveland fans listening on the radio, on the other hand, had a pretty good idea: "José and Anderson square off! They're fighting! They're swinging! Down goes Anderson! Down goes Anderson!"
Maybe it's because I've long loved Ramírez as a player, while something about Anderson rubs me the wrong way—I get the idea that he'd like to take a selfie of himself in the batter's box—but it was for me satisfying to see José, while being pulled backwards by a teammate, still land a blow of sufficient force to put his antagonist on the ground. They play a lot of games, and some of them seem pretty sleepy, so it's oddly reassuring to see evidence of competitive zeal, even over-zeal.
As exemplars of the Scandinavian race, Ray Christensen probably laps a guy who enjoys the occasional fist fight.
Turned on the TV and in the third inning the Twins are ahead of the Tigers, 8-0. I rely on Aaron Gleeman, who covers the Twins for The Athletic, to keep me abreast of Twin bytes. Jeffers continued the hitting jag he's been on lately with a 3-run homer in the first inning. His on-base percentage is now .388. Joe Mauer, who was inducted into the team's hall of fame on Sunday, is the only catcher in Twins history to have a .388 on-base percentage for a whole season. Mauer did it several times. In fact, his lifetime on-base percentage was .388. Has to be a first-ballot Cooperstown inductee.
Earlier today Gleeman tweeted:
MLB just handed down the White Sox/Guardians suspensions.
Tim Anderson got six games for starting the fight and José Ramírez got three games for ending it.
If you like baseball, especially the Twins, Aaron is a good social media follow.
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