“Tavarez Brings the Pain”

by Andy Liakos (Boston Red Sox writer), 3/27/06

The Boston Brawlers are at it again. The beef between Boston and Tampa Bay heated up today in an exhibition game in Fort Myers, Florida. Spring training slugfests are always nice to see, especially when one of our guys gets the best of it. His pitches might not have altogether connected, but Julian Tavarez had no problems connecting his fist to Joey Gathright’s face. Reliever, Julian Tavarez had to cover the plate when catcher, Ken Huckaby was forced to run down the first base line. Apparently while covering the plate, Tavarez’s leg hooked around Gathright’s arm as he was sliding into home. Gathright then proceeded to push Tavarez in the leg, and that’s when Tavarez lost it and started to pummel Gathright. He landed a strong right-hook in the face and then followed through with a hammer-punch to the head.

I love it. This is the shit that really gets me fired up for the season. The best part is that Julian Tavarez has absolutely no qualms over what he did, and openly defends his actions. Tavarez later told reporters, “You have to defend yourself, man, I don't have a twin brother out there. I tried to get out of the way and I wasn't going to let him throw a punch at me right away. You ever hear that whoever gets the first punch gets the win? That's what happened. That's how it goes."

Gathright rebutted with a few words himself, “"Yeah, it just kind of glazed," he hits like a woman."
But either way, it’s always nice to see our guys play the game with so much emotion and enthusiasm. Franconia thinks this is just an isolated incident, and that the longstanding history of brawling between the two teams had nothing to do with this. Call it what you want, but now with Bronson Arroyo gone, it is apparent that someone had to step up and bring the pain to the D-Rays. Now we know that man is Julian Tavarez.