The Yankees and Tigers played a quite eventful game Thursday afternoon at Comerica Park. After Michael Fulmer hit Gary Sanchez and Tommy Kahnle threw behind Miguel Cabrera (earning an ejection), Miguel Cabrera and Austin Romine wound up entwined in one of the season’s best brawls.

Aroldis Chapman, newly demoted from the Yankees’ closer role, had just come on to resume the at-bat with Cabrera that Kahnle had started. But before Chapman could throw a pitch, Cabrera and Yankees back-up catcher Austin Romine began exchanging words in front of home plate. All of a sudden, Romine whipped off his mask, Cabrera pushed him, then threw a jab, Romine went for Cabrera’s legs and an all-out, benches-clearing brawl was upon us.

Here’s another angle:

And here’s Gary Sanchez rolling in out of nowhere to throw a punch as well.

Let’s count the reasons this is a fun base-brawl:

  1. There was actual contact between the combatants, with Cabrera getting in a shove and a punch and Romine taking down the 240-pound first baseman and sneaking in a couple jabs to the gut himself. Though there was plenty of standing around and looking tough involved here, Cabrera and Romine were really into it.
  2. Austin Romine’s brother, Andrew, is on the Tigers! If only they’d run into each other in the scrum, we could have had a Sandor-Gregor Clegane situation on our hands.
  3. It’s rare you see a brawl featuring two players with a wider talent discrepancy. Cabrera is a future Hall of Famer, while Romine should probably be out of the big leagues by now. Cabrera has been worth 69.5 WAR in his career, per Baseball-Reference. Romine? -1.6.
  4.  Check out Dave Robertson sprinting in from the bullpen as if Miguel Cabrera kidnapped his mother or something.

Cabrera is definitely going to get suspended over this, and Romine might face some discipline as well, but the Tigers aren’t going anywhere and the Yankees might be better off without one of the worst hitters in baseball. If Sanchez gets suspended, that could be a problem for New York but hey, worse things have happened.

Anyway, an inning after the brawl, Dellin Betances hit Tigers catcher James McCann in the head with a 98-mph fastball, which isn’t that cool.

Whether or not that beanball was on purpose, it’s probably for the best that the Yankees and Tigers won’t face each other again after Thursday.

UPDATE: The Yankees and Tigers wound up with eight total ejections, and Detroit catcher James McCann was beaned in the head, then hit a home run off a Yankee fan’s face. It was a crazy game, to say the least.

About Alex Putterman

Alex is a writer and editor for The Comeback and Awful Announcing. He has written for The Atlantic, VICE Sports, MLB.com, SI.com and more. He is a proud alum of Northwestern University and The Daily Northwestern. You can find him on Twitter @AlexPutterman.