The Margin: If you like bench-clearing baseball brawls, this was a good day

If you like old-time hockey, you would have loved a pair of baseball games Wednesday.

The season’s not yet two weeks old and many game-day temperatures are still frigid, but tempers were hot Wednesday in Denver and Boston.

First, the Colorado Rockies got into a bench-clearing brawl with the San Diego Padres in the third inning of their game, after star third baseman Nolan Arenado charged the mound after pitcher Luis Perdomo threw behind him — and then chucked his glove at the oncoming Arenado. The two, along with Rockies German Marquez and Gerardo Parra as well as the Padres’ A.J. Ellis, were ejected.

“I didn’t like it,” Arenado said after the game, “but I had to do something.”

Hours later, one of the Major League Baseball’s most bitter rivalries got even more bitter, as the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees traded punches after Sox pitcher Joe Kelly drilled batter Tyler Austin in the seventh inning. Austin had earlier caused both benches to clear with a hard slide into second base. The two were ejected, along with Yankees third-base coach Phil Nevin.

No one appeared to get injured in either brawl. Suspensions are likely, and will be announced in the coming days.

In mostly unrelated news, the Yankees again topped the list of most valuable teams in baseball, at an estimated $3.7 billion, according to Forbes. The Red Sox were third, at $2.7 billion.