[AP Photo]

There was some more colorful reaction from the controversial Coco Crisp slide into Akinori Iwamura in today's Boston area papers, including Crisp pondering whether they'll be any residual impact into today's series finale...

According to the Boston Herald, Crisp reiterated he didn't intend to hurt Iwamura, but admitted he was sending a message, feeding into Joe Maddon's claims that it was pre-meditated... "If I would have intended to injure I wouldn’t have slid at all," Crisp said. "I would have just ran him over like he was a catcher. I went in hard to send a message. If I wanted to injure him, I would have jump-kicked his (butt). But I didn’t do that

..."If I really wanted to injure him, I could have. If Bartlett would have covered, might have been a little more dramatic.”

Though Maddon wouldn't disclose what is long-distance - and likely colorful - exchange with Crisp, on the steps of the Red Sox dugout, Crisp offered some:

Crisp told him, ‘Look at me. Don’t look down the street at Tito.’ That’s what I was saying,” Crisp said of his heated exchange with Maddon. “And everyone else started looking, so I got louder.

Crisp made it clear that if there was any retaliation by the Rays, he wanted it to be directed at him, not his teammates; which was ironic to many, considering he decided to "send a message" by sliding into Iwamura, not the player he was mad at (Bartlett).

“I don’t know if he could hear what I was saying, but basically I was saying I did that on my own, don’t punish anyone else on the team. Don’t get Petey (Dustin Pedroia [stats]), don’t get (Julio) Lugo, don’t get AC (Alex Cora (stats)) (by) sliding hard at second base. Get me with a pitch. If you want to retaliate with somebody, I’m the man. That’s pretty much it.”

Was last night the end of it, or could this turn into something larger? Iwamura said it was over last night, and Crisp hoped it was too, but didn't deny something could come of it...

“I’ll take mine if they want to come back after me for some reason. It’s tick for tack right now,” Crisp said. “If they want to come after me with a little extra bonus or whatever . . . it keeps on going back and forth, tick for tack. It is what it is. But for me it’s over now. I’m going to leave it alone.”

-- JOE SMITH

joesmith@sptimes.com