Wednesday, May 16 Hey folks, why not just keep home run balls? By Jim Caple ESPN.com |
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Baseball survived The Wave. It survived that irritating beachball craze. It survived Chuck Knoblauch Appreciation Night in Minnesota. But now the game faces its gravest threat since Beanie Babies. Fans throwing opponent home runs back onto the field. Like many puzzling things, this fad started with the Cubs. Evidently disgusted from watching their pitchers yield home run balls, several years ago fans began tossing those same home run balls back as unsuitable for souvenirs.
It made about as much sense as Harry Caray's play-by-play usually did by the seventh inning, but what the heck. They're Cubs fans, we've grown to expect odd behavior from them. It was their little tradition, much like never going to the World Series. And if that minor form of protest made them feel better about suffering through generations of losing baseball, well, who did it hurt? The problem is fans everywhere decided to copy them, turning a formerly odd little custom into an annoying epidemic. In Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, Seattle's stadium and others throughout the league, fans treat enemy home runs as if they were coated with foot and mouth disease, rejecting them as surely as a new Paulie Shore movie. It's crazy. These same fans will scramble over rows of seats, dangle from railings, push strangers to the ground, trample nuns and bite children just to get their hands on a foul ball hit by an opponent. They'll stand in line for two hours and pay $25 to have that opponent sign a 8x10 photo. Yet, they'll toss a home run back onto the field because some drunk in the next row hollers at them to do so. Lord knows, peer pressure can be a persuasive thing (remember what you wore in high school?). A fan fully intends to bring the baseball home only to have the yahoos sitting nearby suddenly demand that the ball be tossed onto the field. The taunts build, the resistance ebbs, the fan caves in and the ball goes back onto the field to crowd's cheers. And a couple hours later the fan who caught the ball is back at home kicking himself and trying to explain to the kids what happened to their souvenir. The fans who encourage this obviously think they're being very clever but they're not. Tossing the ball onto the field is neither clever nor original. It's as tired as the Chicken, as old as the Baltimore roster. It's just stupid. Even in this offensive era, a home run ball is as precious as a two-hour game, a gift from the gods. To throw it back is an insult. Do you know how many games you can sit through and never have a home run come close to you? Do you know how many home runs must be hit to you before you actually hold onto the ball instead of watching it glance off your fingertips as if you were Marv Throneberry? If you are so lucky, so blessed, as to catch a home run ball, keep hold a grip on it as certain as a tattoo. No matter what the fools around you yell, don't even think of throwing that ball back onto the field. Cherish it as a lasting memento of the day you were on the receiving end of greatness. Don't ever let it go. Unless, of course, Todd MacFarlane offers you a lot of money for it.
Box score line of the week In just his second start of the season, Florida's A.J. Burnett pitched one of the more amazing games in recent history when he walked nine batters and hit another, threw nearly as many balls as strikes -- and still pitched a no-hitter. "I'm not going to lie to anybody," Burnett told reporters of the nine-walk no-no. "That's ridiculous." Ridiculous but not unprecedented. Jim Maloney walked 10 batters and hit a batter in a 10-inning no-hitter in 1965. And Nolan Ryan walked eight while throwing a no-hitter in 1974 (think batters were a little nervous about stepping in against the Ryan Express that day?). But still, Burnett's performance was pretty impressive. His line: 9 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 9 BB, 9 K, 1 HBP, 1 WP Burnett is believed to be the first major leaguer with two nipple rings to throw a no-hitter. Unless there was a side of Nolan that nobody knew about.
Lies, damn lies and statistics
From left field
Win Blake Stein's money Q: Who pitched a no-hitter while on LSD?
Power rankings
A. Dock Ellis walked eight batters but no-hit the Padres on June 12, 1970. He later said he had dropped acid before the game.
Voice of summer -- Lou Piniella on former Nasty Boy Rob Dibble's suggestion that Ichiro might not be as good as billed. Jim Caple is a Senior Writer for ESPN.com. |
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