Will Flemming wanted Jovani Morán to drill Austin Wells with Jazz Chisholm Jr. already standing on third base. He said it out loud on WEEI while the Yankees led 7-1 in the eighth of a game that finished 16-1. Then he called Chisholm a bush-league player who plays the game the wrong way and floated the idea that Morán should fight him as he trotted home.
I am not clutching pearls about heat. This rivalry has run on heat for a century. I am saying the target was wrong and the prescription was worse.
Chisholm drew a leadoff walk. Boston did not hold him. He took second. He took third without a throw. Aaron Boone later said he ordered both steals after watching the Red Sox refuse to play it straight, and he told interim manager Chad Tracy as much. Boone called it the right thing. Chisholm was sitting on 40 stolen bases, leading the American League, and tying his career high. That is not freelancing. That is a manager exploiting a defense that went soft in a six-run game.
Flemming’s on-air line still sits with me: “Wouldn’t you sort of like to see Moran drill Wells right here?” Followed by the bush-league label and “I’m going to say it, he plays the game the wrong way.” Then the fight suggestion as Chisholm scored and Wells went deep to make it 9-1. The Yankees poured on nine in the inning. The season series flipped to 7-6 New York. If the paces hold, these two are pointed at another Wild Card series after New York took last year’s in three.
The Booth Is Not the Bleachers
Monday, Flemming posted the apology. “My comments during yesterday’s broadcast crossed a line. I’m emotional and a fan at heart and that bled into the broadcast.” Second post: he meant no disrespect, could and should have used different words, rivalry games get him fired up, and he apologized for letting the moment get the best of him. He said the calls and threats were nonstop. He also called Boone, who accepted it. Flemming was already scheduled off the next series.
I buy the emotion. I do not buy the framing that this was just fandom overflowing. A radio play-by-play guy does not get to audition intentional hit-by-pitches and fistfights because a speed guy with 40 steals kept running when nobody held him. That is not protecting the sport. That is losing the plot while your bullpen is already on fire. He even conceded Chisholm’s talent in the same breath, the defense that helped win the Wild Card a year ago, before circling back to the etiquette sermon. The contradiction is the tell.
I have watched enough of these series to know when the unwritten rules are real strategy and when they are a comfort blanket for the team that stopped competing. Boston left the bag open. Boone walked through it. Chisholm did the job. Wells then punished the next pitch. The “wrong way” lecture only ever seems to surface when the scoreboard is already a problem.
Vinegar Belongs. Beanballs Do Not.
Flemming was right about one thing in the broadcast chaos: this series needed vinegar if October is coming. He supplied it the ugly way. Calling a player bush league for executing a manager’s order is the loser’s vocabulary. Suggesting the pitcher put one in a catcher’s ribs and then scrap with the baserunner is the actual breach. Boone’s version of the unwritten code is simpler and cleaner. Respect some of it. Evolve the rest. Do not sit back when the other side stops holding runners.
The Red Sox had been a comeback machine all year. A six-run hole in the eighth is not automatically a mercy situation if you still believe in your lineup. Once you stop holding the runner, you forfeit the right to clutch the pearls about baserunning aggression. Jazz kept running because that is what 40-steal seasons look like. The Yankees kept scoring because Boston could not stop the bleeding. Sixteen to one is the score that matters. The rant is the soundtrack that will travel.
I do not need Flemming fired. I need the distinction held. Emotion in a Boston-New York broadcast is the job. Ordering violence from the booth is the line he crossed, and he admitted as much once the threats rolled in. Boone took the phone call and moved on. Chisholm, Judge, and Rodón had their say in the following days. The standings still have both clubs in the wild-card mix, Yankees ahead, with the Rays still the division problem for New York.
If they meet again in October, the first stolen base in a close game will carry this clip underneath it. Flemming already wrote the pregame package. The next man in the booth will feel the temperature the second Jazz takes his lead. The rivalry did not need a bush-league sermon to stay alive. It needed the scoreboard, the steals, and a broadcaster who knows the difference between fire and a match tossed at the other dugout.
