Yankees' Mariano Rivera In On-Field Conflict with Teammate, Joba Chamberlain

There are a few different maxims if you're a player in major league baseball. One, never talk back to your manager. Two, don't scream at umpires if you want to stay in the game. And three, treat the Yankees all-time great pitcher, Mariano Rivera with complete respect.

Joba Chamberlain, a young pitcher on the Yankees, forgot about number three this past Saturday night after the middle reliever, Chamberlain publicly warned Rivera not to "shush'' him.

"We did talk,'' Rivera told ESPN on Sunday morning. "It's good. Sometimes you have little things that we say that we don't mean. We're a family here. It's something that we take care of in house. Unfortunately it happened in front of you guys, but again, it shouldn't happen. We apologize and we move on.''

Chamberlain denied that he had apologized to Rivera -- "There's no need to apologize. For what?'' -- but said he and Rivera had "joked and laughed'' afterward. 

"It's over with, it's done, it's really not an issue in the first place,'' Chamberlain said.

According to several reports, the incident happened in the visitors dugout shortly before Saturday night's game between the Yankees and the Kansas City Royals. Rivera, who was conducting an interview with a small group of reporters about his meeting earlier in the day with the family of a young boy killed in an airport accident, asked Chamberlain to lower his voice because he could not hear the questions being asked.

"Joba, yo, bro, bro,'' Rivera could be heard saying to Chamberlain on a tape of the interview played for ESPNNewYork.com.

"Suave,'' Rivera said, using the Spanish word for soft, while making a palms-down gesture with his hands, according to eyewitnesses.

"You do this every day,'' replied Chamberlain, who apparently was trying to talk to some family members in the stands near the Yankees dugout at the time. "I don't see my family every day.''

Rivera could be heard chuckling on the tape, and continued the interview. But afterward, he was approached by Chamberlain, who said, "Don't ever shush me again.''

According to witnesses, Rivera tried to laugh that off, too, but a stony-faced Chamberlain repeated, in tones that contained a hint of threat, "No, seriously. Don't ever shush me again.''

"I think when you look at situations that happen, if people could do things differently, sometimes they would do it differently,'' Girardi told ESPN. "Sometimes things just happen and you kiss and make up and go on."

But Chamberlain not only said that he had not apologized, but that given another chance, he would not have done anything differently Saturday night.

"I wouldn't change it,'' he said. "I wouldn't change anything I do in life.''

Here's guessing Joba Chamberlain will be wearing a different team's uniform next season. You just can't violate rule number three in major league baseball without ramifications.