Red Sox fans might recall a bench-clearing incident between Joe Kelly and former Yankees first baseman Tyler Austin, a chaotic brawl that later gave rise to the viral phenomenon known as the “Joe Kelly Fight Club.” Plunking Austin in retaliation for injuring teammate Brock Holt on a hard slide, Kelly instantly became a cult hero, breathing new life into baseball’s oldest rivalry while serving as a rallying cry for the Red Sox en route to their 2018 World Series. Kelly has parlayed his "Fight Club" fame into a burgeoning media career, making frequent radio and podcast appearances while recently cowriting a book with Audacy’s own Rob Bradford, who covers the Red Sox for WEEI.
Now working in the White Sox’s bullpen, Kelly’s temper doesn’t run as hot as it used to, which the veteran reliever attributes to the wisdom and perspective he’s gained over the course of 11 major-league seasons. Still, it wasn’t long ago that Kelly almost leapt out of his car to confront Austin during a chance encounter in Times Square, mere moments away from letting his competitive angst and hatred of all things Yankees get the better of him.
“I’ve had to learn as I’ve gotten older to kind of realize when my fuse is about to blow,” Kelly told Jomboy’s Chris Rose on The Chris Rose Rotation earlier this week. “My agents were in the car, we were driving through Times Square. They were joking around and they’re like, ‘Oh my god, there’s Tyler Austin. Don’t you want me to unlock the door for you?’ And the only thing I heard was Tyler Austin. I didn’t know they were joking around. And I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s go.’ [Our] eyes just instantly locked and I started crawling over the seat and they’re like, ‘No no no no no. We’re just messing with you. You’re not going to go out and confront this guy in the middle of Times Square.’”
Attacking Austin in broad daylight—not to mention on the busiest street in America, if not the world—wouldn’t have been a smart decision, though luckily Kelly’s brief tunnel vision eventually gave way to common sense, taking the high road over picking at an old scab. “I kind of had to check myself [into] reality. Now, as a much older Joe Kelly, that would probably never happen. But it’s something I want people to understand and see in the book. I thought it was quite funny,” said Kelly, who has been on a promotional tour of sorts, even making the Super Bowl rounds at Radio Row in Arizona earlier this month. “There would have been some talking like, ‘Hey man, are you good? Is it done?’ And it was done because I think he actually got sent down and never came back, I don’t think.”
While Kelly would go on to win a second World Series with the Dodgers in 2020, Austin’s career has stagnated, currently playing overseas in Japan after seeing his opportunities dry up stateside. A Damn Near Perfect Game: Reclaiming America’s Pastime, hit shelves nationwide Tuesday with hardcover and Kindle editions available on Amazon.
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