Torii Hunter, Albert Pujols nearly fought last season as Los Angeles Angels

Disagreements between teammates happen. Arguments between teammates happen. But fights?

Sure, they happen, but they’re rare. Often times it’s simply a heat of the moment thing where a cooler head prevails, but that apparently wasn’t the case last season in Los Angeles (Anaheim, really) where Torii Hunter and Albert Pujols nearly came to blows.

According to Scott Miller of CBS, both Hunter and Pujols began to throw verbal jabs at each other which resulted in Hunter jumping Pujols from behind with LaTroy Hawkins and Vernon Wells having to restrain him.

Per Miller:

"Pujols called out [Jered] Weaver for showing up a teammate the night before. Then he turned his attention on Hunter, blaming him for the dugout altercation with [C. J.] Wilson.What Pujols did not know at the time was that Wilson and Hunter already had made amends, with the pitcher apologizing to the outfielder for overstepping his bounds in the dugout immediately following the game.“Albert, you’d better get your facts straight,” a seething Hunter told Pujols.Pujols said something back, and Hunter jumped him for being a bad teammate and pouting all season whenever he failed to get hits in a game, even in games the Angels won … and now he was going to call others out?“Shut up, Torii,” Pujols snapped.It was then that Hunter, from across the clubhouse, lost it and charged Pujols. [LaTroy] Hawkins and outfielder Vernon Wells had to restrain him.The meeting proceeded from there, and when it was over, tempers still heated, Hunter had to be physically held back a second time from going after Pujols, who is described as wanting no part of the fight."

This isn’t the first time Hunter has had issues with a teammate as you’ll probably recall he got into it with Justin Morneau when they were both members of the Twins.

Still, pretty shocking stuff.