00:00Mark Teixeira and Vicente Padilla are very different people. Teixeira is the kind of guy
00:06who, when he says a hard collision was an accident, everyone believes him, and the league doesn't
00:11fine him, and the guy he smashed into has no hard feelings. Padilla is the kind of guy who,
00:17when he says a beanball was an accident, nobody believes him, including his own teammates.
00:22Teixeira is considered a gentleman, if a bit too perfect. Padilla is considered a headhunter.
00:30Though he says he's not, he just happens to throw inside a lot and accidents happen,
00:35and actually, everyone's wrong about Teixeira. He's the jerk.
00:39This episode of Beef History is brought to you by T-Mobile, the best 5G coverage in the game,
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00:49In 2005, when Teixeira was on the Rangers and Padilla was on the Phillies, the two faced
00:55off for the very first time. And Teixeira walloped a homer. Same game, Texas next at bat, he took
01:02Padilla for another dinger. Same game, Texas third at bat, Padilla hit him. So the two did not start
01:09off their relationship on the best foot. While both guys had reason to be pissed off, Padilla,
01:14embarrassment, Teixeira, pain. This wasn't beef yet. There weren't any spicy quotes in the press,
01:22Padilla rarely spoke to the media, and texts didn't tend to speak badly about people in general.
01:27The following season, Padilla was traded to the Rangers, and the two found themselves teammates.
01:32So they patched things up, let bygones be bygones, and bunked together on road trips?
01:38Not quite. You see, Padilla didn't turn out to be the best teammate in the world.
01:43I mean, if you just look at specific stats, he was great for the team. He surprisingly broke out as
01:48their best starting pitcher, the closest thing they had to an ace. But if you keep looking at the stat
01:54sheet, you'd see that in the two seasons he overlapped with Tex, he hit 26 batters. This has
02:02team-wide ramifications. The best batters on the Rangers, mainly Teixeira and Michael Young,
02:07were often hit in retaliation. Tex was hit four times by a team that had been drilled by Padilla.
02:13The slugger didn't say anything publicly at the time, but we'll soon learn he absolutely held a
02:19grudge. And Padilla's penchant for aiming for the body made the Rangers a worse team. Let's take a look
02:26at the 2006 mid-August series against division rival Los Angeles Angels. Padilla hit Vlad Guerrero and
02:33received a warning. Next time, he brushed Guerrero back. But after that, Guerrero hit a three-run homer
02:40off him. So then Padilla nailed Juan Rivera and was ejected. Losing your best starting pitcher isn't
02:47great, especially when you're struggling to stay in the AL West race. The Rangers were tied for second
02:53and five and a half games behind first place. And the team tied with them? That'd be the Angels.
03:00And it gets worse. Because if we reference the unofficial baseball code of conduct section 32b,
03:05clause 6 reads, an eye for an eye. The following night, the Angels retaliated by beaning two Rangers,
03:12including Michael Young. Then the Rangers' Scott Feldman felt compelled to retaliate to those hits by
03:18plunking Adam Kennedy, at which point everyone said, enough is enough, let's just kill each other.
03:23I believe that's Tex in the mix there. Padilla was suspended five games, Scott Feldman was suspended
03:28six, and Texas manager Buck Showalter was suspended four games, which is not gonna help you stay in the
03:34pennant race. And it's all Padilla's fault. His teammates spoke out, but Teixeira was not one of
03:41those teammates. Not really his style to badmouth anyone in the press, and this instance was no
03:47exception. The Rangers did not stay in the pennant race and missed the postseason in 06.
03:52In the middle of the following season, Tex was traded away, and the two stayed on their
03:57individual trajectories for the remainder of the season. Padilla threw at Nick Swisher in September,
04:02caused a brawl, and was suspended. Tex played well. Our adversaries met a couple of times in 08,
04:09but nothing too eventful happened. Some strikeouts, some walks, some sacrifice flies. Was the past behind
04:15them? All forgotten and forgiven? Nope. June 2nd, 2009, Padilla's still with the Rangers, Teixeira's on
04:23the Yankees, and Padilla plunked him, not once, but twice. After the second shot, a butt shot, Teixeira
04:31finally let his anger show. Then he took a hard but clean slide into second that many considered
04:38retaliation, though Teixeira admitted nothing. This amount of on-field emotion was rare for Teixeira,
04:45and it did nothing but raise his status in the eyes of Yankee fans. This was his first year in New
04:51York, and he had a reputation for being good at baseball, but in a way that a robot would be good
04:56at baseball. He's a little too perfect, a little dull, a little unrelatable. But this guy? He was
05:03exactly what the Yankees needed. Case in point, that hard slide into second he wouldn't admit was
05:09retaliation? Well, it broke up with double play and served as the momentum shifter of the game,
05:14which the Yankees then won. Oh, and about that whole gentleman who never has a bad word to say
05:20about anybody? Well, that changed. After the game, Teixeira let feelings he'd had pent up since Padilla
05:26first hit him in 2005 fly free. He not so subtly maligned the pitcher's ability,
05:33and integrity, claimed Padilla also had feelings from 2005, and he let them fly every chance he got.
05:41Teixeira shed some light on their time as teammates. Turns out he actually asked Padilla to stop hitting
05:47batters because of the retaliation, but Padilla simply ignored him. For what it's worth, Padilla said
05:53he didn't hit Teixeira on purpose in that Yankee game. But seems his word wasn't worth much here. A few
06:00days later, Padilla was put on waivers, which was significant because the pitcher had been pretty
06:05good. This was his first game off the DL, and before that time off, his numbers weren't bad. Not to
06:11mention, Texas didn't really have a great replacement in their rotation. But his pitching granted him no
06:17forgiveness. Teammates were frustrated, and the organization felt they had to send Padilla a
06:22message. That message being, stop hitting people who are willing to drop you. I imagine this could
06:28have been quite frustrating for Padilla when viewed through a certain light. Tex throws a little tantrum,
06:33and slides really hard, and everyone loves him, while Padilla's the bad guy almost getting kicked off
06:38the team. But whatever Padilla was thinking, he certainly didn't heed the team's message. About two
06:45months later, he beamed A's batter Kurt Suzuki. The A's retaliated by hitting Michael Young, which Padilla
06:52thought was very, very funny. Not sure Michael Young would agree. And a few days after that, Padilla was
06:59designated for assignment. His teammates were glad to see him go. Fans too. Meanwhile, the rest of 2009
07:08was pretty nice for Mark Teixeira. All that might have annoyed Padilla, though he didn't have a bad
07:16end of the season either. The Dodgers picked him up, and he did well for them. He's a good pitcher.
07:22So, did World Series titles or career upswings provide some perspective that lessened the beef?
07:28You know, sort of like, we've got bigger fish to fry now? Well, let me ask you a question. How many
07:33people do you know who prefer fried fish to beef? Even if you come up with a list, Mark Teixeira isn't
07:40on it. In 2012, Teixeira took Padilla for a go-ahead two-run triple. After the game, the gentleman robot had
07:48more to say. Mainly that Padilla plays cheap and should be suspended. Padilla defended himself. He's just a
07:55guy who's not afraid to throw inside, and Teixeira is just a guy who maybe isn't tough enough for this
08:01game. Don't know why he had to bring women into it. It's like he wants me to talk about c-sections,
08:07even though a lot of people have told me to stop doing that. Padilla also challenged the notion that
08:12Tex was some upstanding nice guy. He accused him of racism and claimed Tex once threatened him with a bat.
08:18An unnamed teammate confirmed the bat threat, but said it didn't seem racially motivated. And other
08:24Hispanic teammates came forward to say they never experienced any racism from Teixeira. Tex didn't
08:30take Padilla's accusations too seriously. And he spoke to Padilla's sexist comment, too. Trying to get
08:37me to take sides in this beef. Tex also revealed why Padilla was booted from the Rangers. It wasn't just
08:43that he threw baseballs at people. It was that he laughed on the bench while Young got drilled in
08:47retaliation. I believe Tex's point is, this guy isn't just a headhunter. He's a jerk. Oh, and Teixeira
08:55also got some more revenge on the field. In July, Tex hit a game-tying two-run homer off Padilla and
09:01admired it for a bit. This is pretty unusual behavior for Mark Teixeira. The Yankees' home crowd
09:08absolutely loved the gloating. But this time, Teixeira didn't comment much after the game.
09:14In fact, he downplayed the sweet revenge angle, claiming he wasn't gloating when he watched his
09:20shot. Hmm. Yeah, I guess that could go foul. Somehow. Tex even tried ending this chapter of beef.
09:28Although Padilla might have seen this as an invitation to hit him again. But the pitcher never got a chance
09:34to accept that invitation. He was a free agent after the 2012 season and signed with a Japanese
09:39team that offered him more money than he'd get in MLB, so perhaps he doesn't mind Tex getting the
09:45last move in their game of beef chess. By the way, Milton Bradley, if you're listening, get in touch
09:50with me for an exciting investment opportunity. Not every beef has such clear good guy, bad guy roles.
09:56And if you believe Padilla, this one doesn't either. But people tend not to believe the Sente Padilla.
10:04So, seems like he is the loser of this beef. But it kinda depends how much it hurts to get drilled by
10:11baseballs.
10:21Thank you for watching, and thank you to our Patreon subscribers. If you're not yet a Patreon subscriber,
10:27consider this your personal invitation, Josh? Did I guess your name? Let me know in the comments.
10:33Or let me know by subscribing to the Patreon. For Secret Base, I'm Clara Morse. Good night and good game.
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