Hi everyone, and welcome to our first installment of Great Moments in Trash Talking. In honor of baseball finally being in full swing, pun intended, I thought I’d tell you the story of my favorite piece of trash talking in baseball’s greatest rivalry.
It was August 1, 1973 and the Yankees were playing the Red Sox. In the game the day before, Sox catcher Carlton Fisk had tripped Yankee Roy White while he was trying to score, causing him to miss the plate entirely and allowing Fisk to tag him out. So at the beginning of the next game, Yanks pitcher Mel Stottlemyre threw a fastball right at Fisk’s head, letting him know that the Yankees were looking for revenge.
Later in the game, the Yankees called for a suicide squeeze with their catcher, Thermond Munson, on third base. Munson broke for home and collided with Fisk as hard as he could. Fisk tried to get up to throw the other runner out, but Munson stayed laying on top of him. Fisk then threw Munson off of him, 
and the brawl was on. Munson started throwing punches, and Gene Michaels, who had put down the bunt, started throwing punches too. Basically, Fisk was fighting 1 on 2, and doing a pretty good job of it. A few seconds later both benches had cleared and everyone was throwing punches.
In the end, lots of people left the field with bruises and cuts on their faces, not the least of which was Fisk, who had gotten sucker-punched and then double teamed. Sox pitcher Bill “Spaceman” Lee commented on the incident by saying that the Yankees fighting style was like “a bunch of hookers swinging their purses.” The Sox went on to win the game 3-2, and Spaceman’s comment will go down as the funniest thing I’ve ever heard a baseball player say.
“Hookers swinging their purses.” Now THAT’s talking trash.
Stay tuned for the rest of the month where we’ll be telling further tales of trash-talking greatness.
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Comments
liked that one-but before you were born, right?
I liked that story so much that I read it to my students.