Coco Crisp said his hard slide into Akinori Iwamura was payback for Tampa shortstop Jason Bartlett blocking the bag with his knee on Crisp's stolen base attempt two innings earlier.
He put his whole knee in front of the bag, and it's not something you do as an infielder. You can do that, but that's shady. And he's not a bad dude, but that's shady. It is what it is. You gonna hurt me, I'm going to come back and hurt you.If I would have intended to injure I wouldn't have slid at all. I would have just ran him over like he was a catcher. I went in hard to send a message. ... If Bartlett would have covered, might have been a little more dramatic.
A few minutes later, when Tampa manager Joe Maddon began yelling into the Red Sox dugout from the mound, Crisp yelled back:
I told him, "Look at me. Don't look down the street at Tito." ... I was saying I did that on my own, don't punish anyone else on the team. Don't get Petey, don't get Lugo, don't get AC [by] sliding hard at second base. Get me with a pitch. If you want to retaliate with somebody, I'm the man. That's pretty much it.
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