There have been some pretty good brawls between the Rays and Red Sox in the past. The Pedro Martinez-Gerald Williams beanball war of 2000 was the king until today.

Here’s what happened:

Leading off the bottom of the second inning, Red Sox CF Coco Crisp took a pitch from James Shields off his right thigh. Crisp took one step toward first base, then flipped his bat and ripped off his helmet before sprinting toward Shields on the mound.

Shields flipped his hat off and loaded up for a big roundhouse right. Crisp saw the punch coming and dodged it. He then threw a counter-punch right that caught Shields on the right shoulder.

Dioner Navarro grabbed Crisp and muscled him to the ground near the pitching rubber. Meanwhile, Johnny Gomes led the charge out of Tampa Bay’s dugout and started punching Crisp while Navarro lay on top of him. As the mob gathered around the mound, Akinori Iwamura came in and took a jab at Crisp. Carl Crawford flew in from left field and managed to squeeze in a few blows on Crisp’s head.

Meanwhile, as both bullpens emptied, Julio Lugo looked for someone to grab and hold and found Evan Longoria just off the mound. Red Sox third base coach DeMarlo Hale tackled Shields hard to the ground. Rays third base coach Tom Foley somehow got in the middle of things and appeared to be injured. Eventually, Crisp managed to free himself of Navarro’s grip and crawled out of the pile—through the legs of pitching coach Jim Hickey.

At one point, Red Sox reliever Mike Timlin actually gave one of the Rays a hug. It looked like bench coach Dave Martinez.

When the dust cleared, Shields, Crisp and Gomes had been ejected. Grant Balfour replaced Shields, and the game resumed.

Oh, yeah: Manny came jogging out of the dugout right about the time the brawl portion of your program was winding down.

By the way, here’s what prompted all of this nonsense.

Much, much more on this beauty soon ...

(UPDATE, 7:17 p.m.)

Foley has his right hand taped. No word yet on on the nature of his injury.

Here’s a look back at the brawl history between Tampa Bay and Boston:
March 27, 2006: In a late spring training game at Fort Myers, Red Sox pitcher Julian Tavarez tags Joey Gathright out at the plate, then steps on Gathright’s arm. As Gathright gets up, he shoves Tavarez away. Tavarez punches twice toward Gathright (no serious contact), and MLB suspended Tavarez for 10 games.
April 24, 2005: After a couple of showboat home runs by Eduardo Perez and David Ortiz earlier in the series at Tropicana Field, Rays reliever Lance Carter threw a pitch behind Manny Ramirez, who then homered. Carter buzzed the next batter, David Ortiz, who dropped his bat and took four steps toward the mound. Benches cleared and Dewon Brazelton and Trot Nixon scrapped. That was the game that prompted Curt Schilling to complain that Lou Piniella didn’t have control of his team.
Sept. 28, 2004: After rookie Scott Kazmir pitched 3 1/3 no-hit innings at Tropicana Field, he hit Manny and Kevin Millar in consecutive ABs. Bronson Arroyo had hit Aubrey Huff and Tino Martinez earlier in the game. Kazmir was ejected after a benches clearing scrum.
July 18, 2002: Tropicana Field: Tampa Bay’s Brent Abernathy and Boston’s Manny Ramirez are hit twice each by pitches, resulting in the ejection of Rays reliever Esteban Yan.
Aug. 29, 2000: Pedro Martinez hit Gerald Williams with a pitch to lead off the game. Williams charged the mound and was the first of eight Rays players or coaches ejected that night. Rays pitchers spent most of the rest of the game trying to retaliate. Meanwhile, Pedro had a no-hitter until a ninth-inning single by John Flaherty.

(UPDATE, 7:54 p.m.)
Wikipedia is amazing. I Googled Coco Crisp’s name to find out about his boxing background (his dad, Loyce “Sugar” Crisp, was an amateur fighter) and Coco’s Wikipedia entry popped up on the search. Someone had already added today’s brawl to the bio. Incredible.

(UPDATE, 8:04 p.m.)
Carl Crawford was just hit on the right elbow by a Jon Lester pitch. CC didn’t look too pleased, but he headed on down to first.

Also, before the inning, Manny appeared to get into a shouting match with Kevin Youkilis in the Red Sox dugout. Manny appeared to try to get at Youkilis and was pulled away by two non-playing personnel and Tim Wakefield. Youkilis walked out to right field (he entered the game when Jacoby Ellsbury injured his right wrist in the fourth) and was muttering the whole way.

This is, without a doubt, the most bizarre game of the season. And Boston is cruising, 7-1. So much for heading to Texas in first place.