At one point (I forget which inning), Steve Avery on the mound, hits Jose Vizcaino on the leg, his bad leg, on which he had a very well-publicized injury. The Mets cried foul. Nothing happens.

Bottom of the same inning, Steve Avery leads off, and Bobby Jones throws two pitches right at his head. Home plate ump comes out to warn the pitcher, and then Dallas Green comes out to argue a bit with the umpire. As Green starts to walk back to the dugout, Avery makes a smart-ass comment about Green in front of Todd Hundley. Hundley then gets in Avery's face and chest-bumps him. BENCHES CLEAR. BULLPENS CLEAR. Everyone is pushing and shoving...no punches thrown, just a big scuffle....

Mets win 8-3

Everything stemmed from Hundley's 3-run homer in the 3rd inning. Vizcaino was on 2nd base and celebrated like Hundley just won the game, drawing the ire of Avery. So next time up, Vizcaino gets plunked right behind the knee, and has to come out of the game and misses the next 2 contests. Avery leads off the top of the 5th and the umpire gave Jones two chances for retaliation, but he fails to get the job done on a couple of inside pitches -- which certainly weren't anywhere close to Avery's head, like Matt wrote. At this point the umpire has to issue warnings, bringing Green out to argue. After he's done he says something to Avery, Avery says something back, and then Hundley gets involved, shoving Avery before the umpire and on-deck-batter Marquis Grissom come in to pry Hundley away. After that, mostly just jawing and waist holding until the game gets back underway.

The cherry on top was that Avery then bangs one to dead center that Lance Johnson can't reel in at the wall, but Avery lollygagged around the bases and only settled for a double in what could have been a possible inside-the-park home run. Avery then winds up being one of 13 runners the Braves leave on base, as Jones danced in and out of trouble all night. In fact, he set the Mets record in this game by allowing the most hits without giving up a run. His final line was 7.1 innings pitched, 12 hits, no runs. No other pitcher in team history has allowed more hits while allowing no runs.

Though Hundley didn't get to punch out Avery, he sure socked it to him at the plate. He went 4-for-4 with 2 dingers, with the one he hit in the 3rd a 440-foot tape-measure shot over the visitors bullpen. Probably one of the longest he ever hit right-handed. Incredibly, though this was Avery's 18th career start vs. the Mets, that was only the 2nd home run he ever allowed against them. The only other one was hit by Howard Johnson in 1991. This was Avery's first loss against the Mets since 1991 as well.