Love them or hate them, brawls are one of the most exciting things in baseball. They’re usually contained to the diamond and can be used to bring a team together.
Gary Sheffield joined Ron Darling and Jimmy Rollins on this week’s episode of Audacy’s Unwritten: Behind Baseball’s Secret Rules podcast. He talked about a few different brawls he was involved in, including one that went from the field to the club and finally to his local bar many years later.
Sheffield had a history with the then-named Fausto Carmona. After getting hit one too many times, Sheffield told the media that the next time he gets hit he’ll break Carmona’s arm. Well, Carmona obviously heard Sheffield’s comments and apparently wanted to take him up on them.
This particular brawl was in Cleveland when Sheffield was with the Detroit Tigers in 2008. Both Sheffield and manager Jim Leyland beat Cleveland in the 1997 World Series with the Florida Marlins, so there was always extra juice in the stadium whenever he visited.
Before every game, Leyland would ask if Sheffield had any issues with anyone on the other team, he explained. And on this particular night in Cleveland, Leyland pleaded with Sheffield to not get kicked out.
Carmona hit Sheffield with a pitch, and the slugger stayed true to his word as he walked the whole way to first base. “I took the slowest ‘Sanford and Sons’ walk you could take,” Sheffield laughed.
“So I’m furious, but I’m doing this for my skipper. I’m not getting kicked out,” Sheffield said (35:05 in player above). “I’m 38 years old. I’m not stealing a base. So I get to first base, he throws over to pick me off. And that’s what made me snap.”
“Throw the f—-ing ball to home plate,” Sheffield said. “You had your chance to get me out.”
Sheffield stared at Carmona waiting to see if he would say anything. “He responded, here I go.”
Sheffield said that Victor Martinez was chirping from behind the crowd, so he did everything he could to get to the catcher to no avail. But he didn’t stop there.
After the game, Martinez continued to run his mouth, asking the media what Sheffield, a 20-year veteran at that point, had ever done. That didn’t sit well with Sheffield.
“I went to the club afterwards looking for them where they were hanging out. I saw his teammates in the VIP. I walk into VIP by myself looking for him. So now I’m gonna take it to the streets. I didn’t find him.”
But Sheffield did see Martinez several years later.
“It’s funny because I was over at (Corona Cigar Club) in Orlando and Martinez’s walking up. And I see he’s got like four friends with him and I got a buddy of mine… It never ends with me, I don’t care where I see you,” Sheffield said. “So I’m sitting there smoking my cigar and he walks right up to me. Now, I’m sizing him up. I’m gonna check out the scene and then we’re gonna make it happen. I don’t care, I’m 53 years old and I should be past fighting but I don’t let stuff go.”
Martinez was singing a different tune.
“He came up to me with respect and said ‘Man, I looked up to you. I appreciate you, man. What happened, what happened man. Let’s shake it off.’ When he did that, we exchanged numbers and I let it go.”
Sheffield wasn’t a fan of players acting tough when the cameras were rolling and then apologizing after the fact. But Martinez’s gesture put an end to their feud.
“By him doing that, to me it’s over with now and it’s squashed,” he continued.
After Sheffield was done recording, Rollins later revealed that he got the intel on that night.
“So it’s funny. So I got the background. He took Curtis Granderson with him because Curtis was a young player,” Rollins said. “He didn’t know where to go but he knew Curtis knew where to go, so he dragged Curtis around. They went about four or five spots, and Curtis was like ‘Man, I don’t even want to do this anymore.’ Curtis is a rookie, he didn’t have a choice. If you’re a rookie and Sheffield said ‘Hey, come with me,’ you don’t have a choice,” Rollins laughed.
“Plus, Curtis is a lover. He’s not a fighter,” Darling chimed in.
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