Amidst the chaos during Wednesday's Red Sox-Yankees brawl, cameras caught Red Sox manager Alex Cora dismissing ejected Yankees third base coach Phil Nevin with a wave of his hand.
Fans and media reacted with anger in New York, but Cora didn't back down on Thursday when asked about the confrontation. As Nevin was being restrained on the field, Cora made a shooing motion from the Red Sox dugout and drew a square with his fingers, as if suggesting Nevin return to his coach's box.
"Well after the whole thing, he was screaming at our dugout," Cora said. "I don't know if he was screaming specifically at me, and I took exception. I don't want to say I overreacted, but that's not me. I think for 10 games or whatever I've managed you guys have seen me very calm over there. There's something about chain of command. If we're going to let everybody be screaming in situations like that, it wasn't a good situation in the beginning, and it can be worse. I don't manage their team, obviously. I manage my team. I don't want any of my coaches to be screaming at Aaron Boone or any of their players. I took exception. I made a signal. I know everybody saw it. Out of character for me, but I still didn't like the fact that he was pointing at me and screaming at me."
Asked if he planned to talk to Nevin about it, Cora flatly answered no. He's clearly not backing down on this one, and the Red Sox as a team appear to be following his lead.
Asked how he felt about the encounter, Nevin told reporters in the Yankees clubhouse that it was unprofessional.
"If you want to talk about chain of command and then tell somebody to get back into their box, everybody saw that, that's pretty unprofessional," Nevin told reporters.
For his part, Yankees manager Aaron Boone declined to address the incident, saying it's yesterday's news.
Nothing like a healthy, hate-filled rivalry again ...