If you ever wanted to see two grown men tussle over a souvenir and you didn’t attend the Texas Rangers-Toronto Blue Jays game at Globe Life Park in Arlington on Saturday night, well, you missed out, friend.
With no outs and a man on first in the top of the ninth inning, the Jays’ Edwin Encarnacion swung and missed at a Jason Frasor offering, losing his bat in the process. It landed well into the seats along the third base line, and that’s where the fun started--well, fun or ridiculousness, depending on how you look at it.
The bat was seemingly grabbed by two men at once, and neither wanted to let go. So this happened. During the stand-off, at least three others tried to get in on the action, but it came down to the original two--we’ll call them Black Shirt and Gray Shirt.
See Deadspin's Video of the Tussle in Extreme Slow Motion (Caution due to language)
Black Shirt eventually let go, seemingly at the behest of an usher, making Gray Shirt the victor--if you can call it that. We’re more inclined to believe, when it’s two grown men squabbling over Edwin Encarnacion’s bat on live television, there are no real winners.
For what it's worth, we're still not sure what happened to the bat. Gray Shirt seemed to have it in his possession after the stand-off, but Rangers' roving reporter Jim Knox did a spot just a bit after, holding the bat at the center of all that controversy.
