Did Adam Eaton start a benches clearing altercation, or was it Andrés Giménez’s fault?

The benches cleared on the Southside of Chicago Thursday afternoon, but are the White Sox or Indians to blame? 

We had a benches-clearing altercation on Thursday in Chicago, but the act itself was not the most interesting thing that happened.

Long after the players had returned to their dugouts following the first-inning dustup, the question still lingered as to who deserved blame for starting the whole thing?

Usually, it’s pretty cut and dry, as typically these sorts of things happen after a player is beaned by a pitch or a pitcher takes exception to the way a batter celebrating what he just did to said pitcher’s very bad pitch.

But in the White Sox-Indians game on Thursday, the lines were blurred.

Who started the White Sox-Indians benches-clearing altercation

First off, we need to frame this as an altercation and not a brawl, even though that sounds cooler. This wasn’t a free-for-all tango of fisticuffs, rather an extremely tenuous moment following an aggressive — and perhaps overly-aggressive — play at second base.

In a real Roshomon situation, depending on who you ask you’re going to get a different person to blame for the benches clearing. Bally Sports Cleveland shared the highlight but pegged Adam Eaton as the instigator.

While it’s true that Eaton pushed Gimenez at second base, it appears as though the shove came after Gimenez pushed Eaton off the bag with his tag.

At least, that’s the White Sox version of the story.

Repeated viewings would seemingly suggest that Cleveland is at fault here, but Eaton loses points for losing his cool. This also ended up being nothing more than a large gathering involving a loud conversation, and not a brawl, so ultimately whoever is to blame we are all losers in this.