This Just in, Dodgers and Diamondbacks Don’t Get Along

What baseball fan doesn’t love an honest-to-goodness bench-clearing brawl? We all know the Dodgers and Diamondbacks do. Going back the previous four seasons these two teams have produced some of baseball’s best extra-curricular drama, and earlier this week the fun finally arrived to spring training.

Festivities began in the top half of the first inning on Monday when Dodgers starter Chris Anderson hit Mark Trumbo with a pitch. The response came in the bottom half of the inning when Arizona starter Daniel Hudson hit Justin Turner prompting warnings to both teams.

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Fast-forward to the fifth inning when Turner was nailed once again, this time by Diamondbacks reliever Allen Webster. Both Webster and Diamondbacks manager Chip Hale were ejected. In the eighth, Arizona reliever Derek Eitel hit Dillon Moyer, and Eitel was ejected along with bench coach Glenn Sherlock who had taken over for Hale.

Even the fans were getting into it, loving the added spice not normally seen in a late-March Cactus League match-up. “Well, how many guys ya gonna hit?” one disgruntled supporter yelled out acerbically as Eitel walked off the field. Eitel wouldn’t be hitting anyone else that day.

Close followers of the Dodgers or Diamondbacks over the past few seasons will not be surprised with such on-the-field shenanigans. Some say it all began in September, 2011, when Arizona outfielder Gerardo Parra stood at home plate and admired a home run blasted off Dodgers reliever Hong-Chih Kuo. At the time, the Diamondbacks were on their way to winning the NL West while the Dodgers were mired in mediocrity. Clayton Kershaw had a few choice words for Parra from the dugout, and the following night, the Cy Young candidate (and eventual winner that year) went a step further and hit Parra with a pitch on Gerardo’s second trip to the plate. Kershaw was ejected, but the black and blue dye had been cast.

In 2013, it all kicked off again, this time with Zack Greinke hitting Cody Ross in a game in the middle of June. It may have been a mistake pitch by Greinke, but that meant nothing to Diamondbacks starter Ian Kennedy who threw high and tight on then-rookie Yasiel Puig. The ball ricocheted off Puig’s shoulder and hit his broad face. In the seventh, Greinke retaliated by hitting Diamondbacks catcher Miguel Montero. Benches cleared, rife with tension, but no fights quite yet.

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Next time Greinke came up to bat, Kennedy went high and tight for a second time and hit him in the earflap of his helmet. The benches cleared again and this time out came the handbags. Punches were thrown, curses were hurled, shoving, pushing. Even managers were caught up in the fracas like naughty schoolboys (Note to self: Never stick around a brawl when Mark McGwire is looking for a punching bag).

Three months later, the Dodgers just so happened to clinch the division title in Arizona and celebrated by jumping in the Chase Field pool behind the center field wall. This did not go over well with the Diamondbacks or with Senator John McCain.

Ah, memories.

The Dodgers and Diamondbacks lock horns again early next week in Cactus League action, but it will start up for real the second series of the season when the Dodgers make their first road trip of the new campaign. Will more fireworks ensue between the modern rivals? Watch this space.