A Sports Filled Weekend

Baseball owns a remarkable sense of history and quests for vengeance. Last year, in the playoffs, the Texas Rangers and Toronto Blue Jays started a bench-clearing brawl heated further following Jose Bautista’s bat-flipping show after a home run. On Sunday, the teams took that a step further.

When Matt Bush hit Bautista with a pitch in the eighth inning of Sunday’s game, the nastiness erupted again. Bautista slid hard into second base, nearly taking out second baseman Rougned Odor. Odor took offense, shoved Bautista, and then punched him in the face. Empty those benches!

At the end (counting earlier nastiness) eight players, a coach and Jays manager John Donaldson had been ejected. Texas won 7-6, but MLB’s pending discipline will be even more fun.

Golf

Australian Justin Day led wire-to-wire and won the The Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Day won by four strokes for his 10th PGA Tour victory. He’s the world’s No. 1 player and won for the seventh time in 10 months and is the TPC’s first wire-to-wire winner in 16 years. The winner’s share: $1.89 million.

NBA

The Toronto Raptors exploded in the second half and won Game 7 of their series with the Miami Heat 116-89. They’re in the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in their history and play the Cleveland Cavaliers beginning Tuesday night. Miami had won four consecutive Game 7s. … Karl-Anthony Towns of the Minnesota Timberwolves will be announced on Monday as the NBA’s Rookie of the Year.

NHL

The St. Louis Blues won the opener of the Western Conference finals 2-1 over the San Jose Sharks.

Elsewhere
Top-seeded Maryland defeated Quinnipiac 13-6 to advance to the quarterfinals of the NCAA men’s lacrosse tournament. … Matt Kenseth snapped a 17-race losing streak, winning NASCAR’s AAA 400 Drive for Autism. He led 48 of the 400 laps. Kyle Larson was second. … Andy Murray won the Internazionali BNL d’Italia tennis crown, beating two-time defending champion and top seed Novak Djokovic 6-3, 6-3 on Sunday.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman