August 21, 2006, Gibbons walked to the mound in the third inning to remove pitcher Ted Lilly from Toronto's game against the Oakland Athletics. Visibly frustrated at his own performance (having given up seven runs in that inning to erase an 8–0 lead), Lilly initially refused to surrender the ball to Gibbons. Words were exchanged and Lilly left the mound and headed for the clubhouse. When Gibbons returned to the dugout, he followed Lilly into the clubhouse tunnel where, according to eyewitnesses, he confronted his pitcher regarding his insubordination. Cameramen saw Gibbons push Lilly first. "Gibbons just went at him," photographer Aaron Harris said. The two exchanged shoves, and a number of players and Blue Jays staff rushed in from the dugout to break it up. During MLB's 2014 winter meetings, Lilly was working as a front-office member of the Chicago Cubs. Signalling that he harbored no hard feelings, Gibbons stuck his head into a Chicago hotel suite filled with media and laughingly called Lilly out. At the beginning of the 2008 season, Gibbons benched future Hall-of-Famer Frank Thomas, who had a batting average of .167 after the first 20 games of the season. Thomas, typically a slow starter, was livid over his lack of playing time. He claimed that the Blue Jays were giving him less playing time to prevent him from getting 364 at-bats in the season, which was the required amount for his $10 million 2009 option to become guaranteed. The Blue Jays responded the next day on April 20, 2008, by releasing Thomas. Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi met with Thomas and they agreed that the best thing for the team and for Thomas would be to let him go. Thomas returned to the Oakland Athletics and hit well despite some struggle with injury. It was his last season in the Major Leagues. After striking out for the second time in three innings in a game against the New York Yankees on August 16, 2016, Blue Jays third baseman and reigning American League MVP Josh Donaldson returned to the dugout and angrily threw his bat against a bat-rack very close to where Gibbons was standing. Gibbons quickly confronted Donaldson, and the pair got into a short argument in an incident that was caught on camera. Blue Jays' players Troy Tulowitzki and Josh Thole stepped in to restrain Donaldson. The incident, while creating "fabulous talk-show fodder",