Did Chase Utley really ask a pitcher to hit him on purpose last season?

Even though Chase Utley is wearing Dodger blue these days, the former Phillies second baseman remains a fan favorite for his willingness to do whatever it takes to win games, including putting his own health at risk.

Which is why an anecdote reported by MLB.com analyst Peter Gammons seems so perfect for Utley, who just signed a one-year, $2 million deal to return to the Los Angeles Dodgers this season.

Dodgers coaches told Gammons that during a game where the team had a big lead in the top of the eighth inning, a younger player decided to steal second base.

The following inning, Utley reportedly stepped into the batter's box.

"When Utley got to the plate in the ninth, he told the opposing catcher to have the pitcher drill him," Gammons wrote. "Then his teammate would understand there are consequences for showing up the opposition."

A 38-year-old batter taking a 90-mile-per-hour pitch straight to the ribs to teach a younger player a lesson about how to play the game of baseball? That's quintessential Utley, which is why he's quickly become a favorite in the Dodgers' clubhouse.

But did it really happen?

Jon Weisman, who worked for years as the director of digital and print content for the Dodgers, looked through every game where Utley was hit by a pitch as a Dodger, and said he couldn't find a match to Gammons' story.

According to Baseball-Reference.com, there were only two games last season where the Dodgers stole a base in the eighth inning, and in both cases the team was only up by 2 runs, hardly blowouts. Also, Utley wasn't hit by a pitch after the seventh inning with a lead all last season.

Gammons' story doesn't say Utley was hit, only that he asked to be hit, leading Weisman to come up with his own theory on how the situation might have gone down:

"Then there was a game last year in which Kershaw wasn't getting strikes he thought he'd thrown. When the Dodgers got back to the dugout, A.J. Ellis was hollering at the home plate umpire. Utley warned Ellis not to get ejected. Chase grabbed a batboy's skull cap, a jacket, got a towel and rounded up a bunch of fresh baseballs and went out to give the umpires the balls, which is the batboy's job. When the umpire asked him what he was doing, Utley told him he was not going to embarrass the ump, that no one would notice he was out there, but Kershaw had to have some of those pitches. Having spoken his [piece], Utley ran back to the dugout like just another clubbie batboy."

As with the earlier story, there's no way to independently verify if this actually happened. It's hard to believe Utley would have been able to sneak out without someone from the many broadcasts and beat reporters that cover the team seeing him or finding out about it.