By Steve Wilstein
The Associated Press

BOSTON - A day of rain is just what the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees needed to cool off the hotheads.

As showers fell Sunday, postponing Game 4, baseball and the police tried to sort out the troubles of the night before when fights on the field and in the bullpen could easily have triggered nastier problems in the stands and streets.

If baseball wants a soccer-style riot all it has to do is let these two venom-spewing teams keep up their idiotic attacks on each other. The craziest of their fans will do the rest.

Fortunately, some baseball officials realize that. Boston's Pedro Martinez was fined $50,000 Sunday, teammate Manny Ramirez $25,000, New York's Karim Garcia $10,000 and Yankees coach Don Zimmer $5,000 for their actions in Game 3 of the AL championship series.

Commissioner Bud Selig told the clubs that "any future misconduct by either team will not be tolerated and will be dealt with severely."

Zimmer apologized for his role in the melee, fighting off tears.

"I'm embarrassed for what happened last night," he said, his voice quivering and body shaking. "I'm embarrassed for the Yankees, the Red Sox, the fans, the umpires and my family."

Red Sox president Larry Lucchino appealed for calm, asking fans in both cities to treat opposing teams with respect. That doesn't mean there will be any backing down by the players.

"Was anybody right at any point yesterday? Probably not. Was anybody wrong, who knows?" Boston catcher Jason Varitek said. "Things should be just as intense tomorrow."

The ninth-inning brawl in the bullpen set a new low in the bitter history of these clubs. Contrary to what Varitek believes, everybody involved was wrong.

Yankees pitcher Jeff Nelson acted like a thug in picking a fight with a Red Sox grounds crew worker in the pen, and Garcia took a misguided leap over the right field fence to join the fray.

The grounds crew worker, Paul Williams, had no business pumping his fist and waving a white rally flag to Red Sox fans. It wasn't just unprofessional of him, it was stupid to taunt the Yankees at close range.

"I told him, 'If you're rooting for the Red Sox, why don't you go in their bullpen.' He jumped in my face and tried to take a swing at me," Nelson said after the game. On Sunday, he said he had nothing to apologize for, adding that Williams had been cheering the Red Sox in the Yankees' bullpen for three innings.

Lucchino backed Williams, and Red Sox spokesman Charles Steinberg tried to paint the worker as close to a saint, saying he's also a teacher who works with mentally disabled children. Sorry, that doesn't wash. Whatever good deeds Williams does by day, he put on an imprudent display Saturday night and paid for it. He had cleat marks on his back and arm, and was wearing a neck brace when he left the hospital Sunday morning.

Williams readily acknowledged pumping his fist twice in the bullpen while clenching the rally flag, Steinberg said, but claimed he was facing the fans, not the Yankees a few feet away.

"If that was in poor taste, or poor judgment, it certainly didn't warrant a beating," Steinberg said.

It surely didn't. Williams could have danced around the Yankees' pitchers and made obscene gestures in their faces and it still wouldn't have warranted a beating. The Yankees simply should have demanded that the police in the bullpen throw him out.

But that would have required some restraint and good sense, rare virtues when these teams meet.

Yankees president Randy Levine, meanwhile, demanded an apology from the Red Sox for the "disgraceful and shameful" events of the entire day.

Levine shouldn't hold his breath waiting for that apology. Asked about it, Red Sox chairman Tom Werner said, "We certainly do take exception to his remarks."

The police, for their part, are looking for witnesses before deciding whether to press assault charges against the Yankees involved in the fight.

All that, near the end of New York's 4-3 victory Saturday night for a 2-1 lead in the ALCS, has to be seen in the context of the other nonsense that went on:

• Martinez jump-starting trouble by throwing a fastball behind the head of Garcia after the Yankees took the lead in the fourth inning;

• Ramirez overreacting and shouting, bat in hand, while walking menacingly toward Roger Clemens in the bottom of the fourth after a high fastball that was only slightly inside;

• Both teams charging onto the field for a bit of basebrawl;

• Zimmer, still quick to boil even at 72, trying to take Martinez out with a running, left-handed swing during the melee and getting thrown headfirst to the ground by Martinez.

No one expects to see the Yankees and Red Sox hold a lovefest, but no one should take any joy in seeing this century-old rivalry deteriorate into gang war.

The umpires, to their credit, kept things from getting too nuts in Game 3. Now it's up to baseball officials, the managers and the players themselves to stop the fighting before the police have to step in again.

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Steve Wilstein is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at swilstein@ap.org