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It’s still Spring but the bad blood is flowing in the land of Major League Baseball. We all know about how Tampa Bay’s second baseman Elliot Johnson ran over New York Yankee Double A minor league catcher Francisco Cervelli last week fracturing his wrist – and the continuing complaints by new Yankee manager Joe Girardi. “It’s just disheartening in a spring training game,” Girardi said. “I just don’t understand it.”

The problem with that argument, of course, is that Johnson like all players are taught to play hard each and every out, Spring, Summer or Fall. As Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon put it: “We try to play the game the same way on March 8 as we do on June 8.” So the question always is what is playing hard and what is playing dirty. What is the right way to play baseball?

Yesterday things turned a whole lot worse for both teams. Shelley Duncan – who by the way was one of the loudest complainers on the Yankees – went into second base spikes high. You can take a look at a freeze frame to see where his left leg and spikes were in relation to Tampa Bay second baseman Akinori Iwamura.

One brawl and a day later there’s no surprise that the Yankees and Rays see the same play with completely different eyes. “I saw it a couple times,” Duncan revealed. “I still don’t understand why they were as upset as they were.” Duncan explained further: “The ball beat me by quite a bit, and when you’re out by a mile, there are only two things to do: try a weird slide around the base or to slide hard into his glove … I slid hard into his glove.”

Maybe I’m missing something here but his spikes are a heck of a lot closer to Iwamura’s groin than they are to his glove.

According to Joe Maddon, “What you saw today is a definition of a dirty play.” Maddon continued: “There’s no room for that in our game. It’s contemptible. It’s wrong. It’s borderline criminal. I can’t believe they did that. That was a blatant attempt to hurt Aki. And it was set up, it was planned, it was premeditated; it was all of the above. I don’t know what the difference is between that and a high stick in hockey. It was that bad.”

It’s always hard to know what an athlete’s thinking in the midst of action but it doesn’t help Duncan’s case to go back a few days and read his take on the Johnson-Cervelli incident: “They showed what is acceptable to them and how they’re going to play the game, so we’re going to go out there to match their intensity - or even exceed it.”

There’s not much doubt that on Wednesday March 12, Duncan exceeded it. Let’s hope that come the real season the Yankees can make baseball, not war. It’s our National Pastime after all – and we’re 5 years into a real war. Enough blood, it’s time for baseball.