If you find yourself without much going on with your Monday night tonight, and you'd like to stand vigil grown men fighting with each other, be sure to tune in to the Indians-Reds game. Derek Lowe will be starting for the Indians, and apparently Lowe and Reds manager Dusty Baker really hate each other.
The 2012 MLB season has been sorely lacking in good brawls, so maybe this could be good tonic.
Lowe started against the Reds last week, and in the aftermath of the game, Lowe and Baker had an amazing back-and-forth in the media, revealing a mutual hatred of mysterious origin that has been brewing for years.
Here's what happened:
When Derek Lowe came to the plate in the fifth inning against the Reds last week, Cincinnati starter Mat Latos threw a purpose pitch inside to Lowe, which Baker later admitted he had ordered from the dugout.
Lowe gestured at Baker, and Baker wagged his finger back at Lowe, which the Cleveland pitcher took as a claim that Baker had nothing to do with the pitch. Baker set him straight after the game.
"When he said I shook my finger at him to tell him I had nothing to do with it....'' Baker said. "(Former NBA standout Dikembe) Mutombo didn't shake his finger to say, 'I didn't have anything to do with it.' That means, 'Don't mess with me or my team.' That's what that means. So he better learn the sign lanugage.''
Which gave Lowe a chance to tell everyone why he and Dusty Baker hate each other:
"This goes back to my last year with the Dodgers. He made up some bullshit story. A lot of people got involved. People almost got fired over it. You can go ask him right now and he’ll say he has no idea what you’re talking about. But just watch the game. Mat Latos has nothing to do with anything that has gone on. How would he know? Why in the [world] would you throw a 96 mph fastball, first pitch, inside to a pitcher? Ask him."
The he-said, she-said went back and forth a few more times, with each men refusing to spill the details of the origins of their feud, until Dusty Baker finally dropped this bomb of intrigue:
"A lot of people don’t respect me. He don’t respect himself. The word was whatever he did and said probably there was a good chance he was drinking at the ballpark and he don’t remember what he said or what he did. OK."
Drinking at the ballpark? No self-respect?? This stuff is gold.
Tonight's game will take place in Cleveland's home ballpark, so Derek Lowe won't come to the plate. But in retaliation for the purpose pitch last week, Lowe hit Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips. And with the bulldog Mat Latos once again on the mound for the Reds, there's a good chance that we haven't seen the end of this.
--
Follow on Ology: Bison Messink | MLB
Follow on Twitter: @BisonMessink | @OlogySports
Comments (1)