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| Wednesday, August 30 | |||||||||
| The catcher and 'the shade man' toe the rubber ESPN.com | |||||||||
A friend of ours says a crazy thing happened to him Tuesday night. He fell asleep watching the Braves' game -- and when he woke up, he could have sworn he saw Brent Mayne pitching. To Tom Glavine.
Well, this was no hallucination, buddy. Tuesday was, in fact, one of those rarified days in baseball when truth was stranger than hallucination.
We know what you're thinking. You're thinking: When was the last time two mystery pitchers went to the mound on the same day? And the answer, according to the Elias Sports Bureau's Ken Hirdt, is: July 2, 1991, when Doug Dascenzo twirled a shutout inning for the Cubs against the Pirates, and Rick Dempsey staggered through a three-hit, one-run inning for the Brewers against the Red Sox. But even though that was one of three shutout appearances by Dascenzo that year, he still can't top Brent Mayne. Anybody (OK, maybe not Derek Bell) can throw a shutout inning or three. But in the last three decades, only Brent Mayne has thrown a shutout inning and been the winning pitcher. He was the first position player to win a game as a pitcher since Rocky Colavito on Aug. 25, 1968. He was the first National Leaguer to win since Johnny O'Brien on July 3, 1956. And he was the first catcher to win, according to SABR's Chuck Rosciam, since Roger Bresnahan won four times for the 1897 Washington Senators. "So forget the ultimate survivor," Rockies coach-witticist Rich Donnelly told Week in Review. "Give Brent Mayne the million bucks. He's the ultimate survivor." The prologue How does a catcher wind up becoming the winning pitcher in any game? Well, a whole lot of weird stuff has to happen. And it did. The Rockies had to get down to their last relief pitcher, John Wasdin, in extra innings. Then Wasdin had to get himself thrown out of the game for an altercation with Andres Galarraga following an 11th-inning hit-by-pitch. That led to Brian Bohanon, who had been the starting pitcher just the day before, sneaking out of the dugout, telling the umpire, "I'm pitching now," and essentially inserting himself in the game. But after Bohanon got the final out, the Rockies couldn't, in total sanity, leave him in there. So they began looking for options, none of which were exactly Pedro Martinez. "Todd Helton wanted to pitch," Donnelly reported. "He could have been the only guy hitting .400 to pitch. But we said no. And Neifi Perez wanted to pitch. But we had to have a shortstop."
So when the 12th inning arrived, out Mayne went to become the first Rockies position player ever to pitch. And come to think of it, what were the odds of that? "He got out there," Donnelly said, "and shook (catcher Ben) Petrick off the first three or four signs. We said, 'Why'd you do that'? He said, 'I wanted to see what guys feel like when they shake off.' " Mayne said he did, in fact, have three different pitches -- "but they all looked the same," Donnelly said. "He put down curveball, fastball, knuckleball. But they all looked the same." There was also the burning question of how, exactly, Mayne had developed these three pitches. Throwing batting practice? Playing catch? Watching a Tom Emanski video? "No," Mayne said. "Just right then. I just made them up." But let the record show he did have one fastball clocked at 84 miles per hour. And Mayne has visual evidence of that. He looked right out at the stadium radar screen. "Oh yeah," he said. "I checked it out." The shade man Meanwhile in San Diego that day, the Mets were getting pummeled, 11-1, in the eighth inning. They had ripped through their bullpen over the last two days. They were in a pennant race. So Bell, who had once pitched against Taiwan in the Little League World Series, volunteered. But you could tell this was not your ordinary relief appearance when he went to the mound to pitch wearing his sunglasses. Had to maintain his look, even as he was destroying his ERA. "I was sweating all over my glasses," Bell said afterward. "I couldn't see home plate." Sounds like a fine alibi to us. And Bell needed one. He faced 10 batters (most by a mystery pitcher since Kansas City's David Howard pitched to 13 Red Sox on April 12, 1994). He gave up three hits and three walks. He threw only 18 of his 36 pitches for strikes. And he allowed five runs -- four of them earned. Bell did throw one fastball at 87 mph, then bragged: "I know y'all don't see a position player come out there and throw 87." But because he was worried about pulling a Jose Canseco, he also lofted a bunch of eephus pitches up there, the first of which was clocked on the radar board at a pokey 47 miles an hour. For all that, he got a thunderous ovation from his old fans in San Diego. He even exited tipping his cap. "I laugh every time I look at Derek Bell," said Padres manager Bruce Bochy. "He's out there in his sunglasses pitching. I'm just glad we put a number out there against him. Otherwise, he'd be back here bragging tomorrow." Bell may not have looked much like any pitcher who ever appeared on a big-league mound. But "all I know," Padres coach Tim Flannery told Week in Review, "is that when they announced he was the pitcher, they put his numbers up there on the board, and he had 70-some RBI. For a pitcher, that's pretty good." Ah, but the New York Post's Tom Keegan pointed out to Bell that he did forget to back up third base. "I'll have to come out early tomorrow," he laughed, "and work on that." The winner But remember one thing: "Anybody," said Donnelly, "can pitch when it's 16-2." Since Jose Oquendo took his fabled loss to the Braves in a 19-inning game on May 14, 1988, only Brent Mayne has taken the ball in a tie game. It was only fitting that the first batter he faced was Glavine, who was pinch-hitting. "Jammed him," Mayne said, sounding greatly relieved. "And he grounded one back to me." Next came Walt Weiss. He flied to center on the first pitch. Two up. Two down. But it couldn't be that easy. It wasn't. Rafael Furcal followed by whizzing a laser right past the mound. "That one was a little scary," Mayne said. "I said, 'Oh, man. That's enough.' " Andruw Jones was next. Mayne wound up walking him -- but was happy he'd lived to tell about it. "I was kind of more concerned with my safety at that point than anything," Mayne said. "I mean, I didn't want to walk him. But he's a strong guy. You know." Chipper Jones, who followed, wasn't exactly Eddie Gaedel, either. And the thought of the MVP batting against a 32-year-old catcher with no hurling expertise didn't inspire anyone in Denver to possess an overabundance of optimism. But the Chipster was cooperative enough to bounce an inning-ending ground ball to third. "Him getting Chipper out has to go down in history," Donnelly said. "I thought Chipper was going to hit one over the scoreboard -- and he check-swings. That was unbelievable." But the most unbelievable part of all was still to come. The Rockies went out and loaded the bases with two outs in the 12th off John Rocker and Stan Belinda. So rookie catcher Adam Melhuse, an eight-year minor-leaguer with no career major-league hits, was sent up to pinch-hit for Mayne, who was unable to swing a bat. "If Melhuse pops up," Donnelly said, "he's the next pitcher." But he didn't pop up. He singled to left. The game-winning run scored. And the catcher was the winning pitcher. What a country. "It was one of the most exciting events that ever happened in my career," Mayne said. "Not the most exciting, but definitely right up there. It was sure one of the funnest. When I think about my most memorable, I caught a no-hitter. I won a championship in Double-A. I've driven in the winning run in some games, stuff like that. But this was different. "I really didn't know how to react. I really didn't feel like I did it. There were just so many events that led up to it that were odd. Most of the time, when you get in a situation where you're the big story, it's because you did something. Or you worked hard at it. Or you prepared to do it all your career. 'This,' said Brent Mayne, "was none of the above. Talent had nothing to do with it. I went out, threw the ball, they missed some pitches and we won. There was no skill involved. I didn't put myself in that situation. It just kind of happened." The epilogue But because it happened, who the heck will ever forget it? "I'm now a trivia question," Mayne said. And he's not kidding. But not just because he was the winning pitcher. "He's got to be the only guy in baseball history who was a regular, who pitched and won, and got pinch-hit for -- by a guy who didn't have an average," Donnelly said. "This has to be the greatest game ever played in baseball. "I had somebody come to the game who's never been to a game before. He said, 'Hey, this was great. Can you get us more tickets?' "I just said, 'You know, we don't do this every night. You've got a better chance of hitting the Ohio lottery than you do of having this happen again.' " Bomb of the week It wasn't just a home run. It was a NASA launch. It wasn't just a Baseball Tonight highlight. It was true cinema. It was Sammy Sosa, hitting a baseball that went so high, it literally went through a cloud -- on the way to one of the most memorable home runs of the year. We've gotten pretty good in this modern world at estimating how far home-run balls travel in length. But after the skyscraper homer Sammy Sosa thumped Monday at Enron Field, it might be time to start estimating height, too. "We need to have some serious flight requirements on that one," Sosa's teammate, Cubs utility humorist Jeff Huson, told Week in Review. "We need some kind of announcement: 'You're now traveling at 600 feet high. It's safe to turn your computers on.' " What we know about Sosa's shot is that it hit somewhere near the top of a left-field light tower -- "but nobody was sure where because we were blinded," Huson said. "Blinded by the light. See? It was so amazing, there was a song written about that home run." The Astros estimated the distance at 457 feet. But they also got an Enron engineer named Rob Harris to calculate that it bashed off a light bulb approximately 120 to 125 feet above planet earth. "I usually don't watch them," Astros pitcher Scott Elarton told the Houston Chronicle's Carlton Thompson. "But when that one came off the bat, I turned around. I wanted to see it. That's the most impressive home run I've ever seen. It was a pleasure to watch." It was a pleasure to watch? That was the guy who gave it up talking. So imagine what everybody else thought -- especially after the ball's flight path took it through a cloud that had mysteriously formed inside Enron's closed roof, apparently as a result of slow-scattering train steam. "With the cloud, it was straight out of 'The Natural,' " Huson said. "The only thing missing was the kid on the bench reaching into a case and handing him Wonder Boy. We just needed a few light bulbs to blow out -- and some rain -- and it would have been perfect." As the crowd continued to buzz audibly for a full 10 minutes afterward, Cubs players sat on the bench, speculating where this rocket would have landed if it had been hit at Wrigley Field. "They'd have had to call O'Hare and Midway and make sure all the planes were diverted," Huson said. "It might have hit one. I was imagining an 8-year-old kid looking out the plane window, saying, 'Hey mom. Look, there's a ball field. And look, there's a ball.' Thump! And the mom's going, 'That's nice, Timmy. Now drink your milk.' " Bugaboo of the week It started out as a baseball game. It turned into a Hitchcock movie. It started out as Tigers versus Mariners. It turned into humans versus Attack of the Mating Insect Kingdom. It was an evening that maybe Arthur (Bugs) Raymond, Bob (Beetle) Bailey and Herman (Flea) Clifton would have enjoyed. But for everyone else at Comerica Park on Wednesday night, it was a living, flying, swattathon kind of nightmare. "It was unbelievable," Tigers closer Todd Jones told Week in Review. "You looked up, and it looked like sheets of rain pulling in over the stadium." But these weren't sheets of rain. They were sheets of flying ants, in full mating frenzy, according to the local insect experts. And there were, literally, gazillions of them, floating around in flying clumps, descending upon 32,000 unfortunate humans who were attempting either to play baseball or to watch it. "I noticed around the stadium black shadows coming in," said Hideo Nomo. "All of a sudden, there were bugs everywhere -- in your eyes, in your mouth, everywhere." "I couldn't blow my bubble gum," said Mariners starting pitcher Paul Abbott, "because I didn't want to get any bugs in it. I thought we were going to have a bug-out. That would have been a first." Tigers reliever Doug Brocail happened to return to the stadium during the game after a visit to orthopedist James Andrews and was amazed by what he saw, even outside the ballpark. "I saw a lady by the church (across the street), and there were so many bugs, it looked like there was a cloud over her head," Brocail told Booth Newspapers' Danny Knobler. "It was like a cartoon." And if this had been a cartoon, you can bet the characters inside the boxes would have invented many brilliant and hilarious insect-repellant techniques. So the Tigers and Mariners tried their best. Some tried the traditional approach -- with zero success whatsoever. "I put some 'Off' on," said Bobby Higginson. "They should call that stuff 'On,' because they liked it even more." But out in the bullpens, where the relief crews had no place to hide, they were slightly more innovative. The Mariners' relievers wrapped a towel around a piece of wood and turned it into an impromptu torch. But it was the Tigers' bullpen brigade that led the league in creativity. They started an actual bonfire -- in the bullpen. "That was Nelson Cruz and (bullpen coach) Lance Parrish's doing," Jones said. "They're outdoorsy guys. Lance is a big elk hunter, so he said, 'Let's just build us a fire.' He looks like a caveman, anyway. So he just resorted back to his roots." Cruz then raided the grounds crew's garage for some leftover two-by-fours and other assorted fire-building materials. Then they lit it all up. And once the fire got going, they poured water on it to produce some ant-unfriendly smoke bombs. "To be honest," said bullpen catcher Ronnie Nedset, "it didn't help that much. With all that smoke, Lance and I were choking." "That's OK," Parrish said. "I'd rather be sniffing smoke than eating bugs." Now you would think their bosses would have admired their troops' inventive, bug-fighting nature. Instead, of course, they took the selfish route and worried about their $300-million stadium burning down because of a bunch of insects. So the Tigers' brass ordered the fire doused. And manager Phil Garner was forced to make the call to the smoldering bullpen to relay those orders. But he didn't mind. "I'm not sure how many boy scouts we had out there," Garner said. But then, some of the boy scouts themselves weren't too sure, either. As the bugs swarmed and the fire raged, Jones, C.J. Nitkowski and Matt Anderson considered all their options -- and decided to escape to the clubhouse. "Matt actually went back out there to play with the fire," Jones said. "He's got a little pyro in him, so he couldn't help himself. But I didn't try toughing it out myself too long. I ran past (Garner) on the way to the clubhouse and said, 'Just one of the many perks of being a closer. See you in the sixth inning -- when the locusts carry you away.' " Pitchers duel of the week It was one of those pitching matchups that had the historians scrambling for their history books. Thursday in Cincinnati: Omar Daal (3-14) versus Steve Parris (7-14) -- in the first meeting of 14-game losers since a storied Erik Hanson-Bill Wegman duel on Oct. 1, 1992. What a moment. The winner -- that would be Parris -- got, well, a win. The loser -- that would be Daal -- got a continuing chance to threaten the legend of Brian Kingman, a man still clinging to his much-cherished designation as the Last 20-Game Loser of the 20th Century. Some people might look at a claim to fame like that and try to join the witness-protection program. But Kingman, who lost 20 for Billy Martin's 1980 Oakland A's, looks at a claim to fame like that and figures that even a dubious claim to fame is better than none at all. And frankly, that's why we love him for that here at Week in Review. So having surveyed the results of that 14-versus-14 classic, not to mention the rest of the 20-loss field, Kingman is all but ready to declare himself safe for another year. "I don't think anybody's going to make it," he said. "I was a little nervous a few weeks ago, because I thought Jose Lima was going to have a shot. He was way ahead of my pace. That's a little scary for a pitcher to have 14 losses in mid-July. I didn't lose my 14th till late August. Of course, I finished with a flourish." Yes, Kingman lost his 14th on Aug. 23 -- and kept reeling off losses until he hit 20 a mere 33 days later. So he knows anything's possible. And now that Daal has 15 losses, Kingman has declared him "the dark horse." "But the Phillies probably won't let him do it," Kingman said. "They don't want to go out and trade Curt Schilling for a guy and then have him lose 20." Kingman also isn't concerned much about Parris ("pitching too well") or Lima (now that "he's won a couple"). And he was relieved to see Minnesota's Joe Mays take his 14 losses to the minors. So for Parris or Lima to make it now, they'd practically have to turn into Zippy Chippy. "Say these guys have eight starts left," Kingman theorized. "They'd have to lose like six of eight. That's 75 percent of their starts. That's pretty tough to do. Of course, I managed to do it." Yes, he did. And that meant that last year this time, after 19 years of sweating it out, he was looking ahead to celebrating the end of the 1999 season, which appeared to mean his last-of-the-century designation was secure forever. But we had the sad duty of informing him that according to our favorite technicality specialists at the Elias Sports Bureau (who clearly weren't invited to any good New Year's Eve millennium parties), that 20th century isn't over yet -- not till the end of 2000. "Yeah, my brother's like that," Kingman grumbled. "He's a computer geek who thinks this is actually the last year of the century. So I realized it. I just was in denial about it. I wasn't going to give it publicity, in case anybody did it." He's still pretty sure no one will. But just in case, he has one more emergency alibi warming up in the bullpen. "I did it in 154 games, which is the true traditional baseball season, not 162," he said. "So if they do it in more, I'm gonna demand an asterisk." Wild pitches Box score line of the week It's a funny game. Last weekend, Astros rookie Wade Miller took a no-hitter into the seventh inning against the Brewers. Five days later, on Wednesday, he had a 12-hitter going in the fifth inning against the Cubs. His line: 4 2/3 IP 12 H 12 R 8 ER 2 BB 0 K. "No matter where I put the ball," Miller analyzed, succinctly, "they seemed to hit it." Box score line of the week (emergency starter dept.) Out went Mike Hampton. Into that Mets rotation, for his fifth to-the-rescue spot start this year, went Pat Mahomes. He'd given up nine runs in the first four starts combined. He topped that in one day, Tuesday in San Diego, with this line: 4 IP 7 H 10 R 10 ER 5 BB 3 K 3 HR, back-to-back homers in the upper deck, 107 pitches to get 12 outs. "It kept snowballing," Mahomes said. "Every ball was either in the gap or a 400-foot home run." Ex-pitcher of the week In any week when two position players pitch, one name can't help but come to mind: Jose Canseco's. So Bloomberg News' Jerry Crasnick asked Canseco, whose scar is the souvenir of his own ill-fated pitching appearance in 1993, for his reaction to the fine work of Brent Mayne and Derek Bell. "Every time I see a mound now," Canseco said, "I break out in hives." Strikeout of the week It may be one, two, three strikes you're out. But it only took Tigers right-hander Danny Patterson two pitches to strike out Oakland's Ramon Hernandez last Saturday -- thanks to one of the more innovative managerial moves of the year. After Hernandez ran an 0-2 count trying to lay down a bunt, Garner abruptly yanked left-handed reliever C.J. Nitkowski (whom he'd left in for defensive reasons, to field a potential bunt) -- and brought in Patterson. He threw ball one, then the third strike -- and got credit for a two-pitch whiff. "That's the least amount of pitches I've ever thrown to strike out a guy," Patterson said. "I'm pretty sure of that." Nitkowski's only question: "Do I get an assist?" Six pack of the week Wednesday morning, Dodgers manager Davey Johnson had arthroscopic shoulder surgery. He then showed up at Dodger Stadium and watched his team hit six homers in a game -- for the first time since Sept. 26, 1997. Sensing a medical trend at work, Johnson said afterward: "I'm going to get cut on the right one tomorrow. I've got a couple of legs left, too. Whatever it takes, you know." Midnight rider of the week The Red Sox and Angels played a game Wednesday that didn't start until 10 p.m. because of one of those fun-filled three-hour rain delays that have made the Red Sox season so fun-filled. Boston's starting and winning pitcher that night was Tomo Ohka. But just after midnight, Jimy Williams abruptly pulled him in the sixth inning, even though he'd allowed only five hits and one run. "He only got paid to pitch on Wednesday, not on Thursday," Williams deadpanned. "So I took him out." Human screen of the week The good news for Tigers starter Brian Moehler on Thursday was that he beat Seattle and won his fifth start in a row. The bad news was, he did it despite getting nailed by John Olerud rockets back through the box in two straight at-bats. "Brian will be all right," said manager Phil Garner, "after he gets those two baseballs surgically removed." Hit machine of the week Remember a couple of weeks back, when sweet-swinging Cardinals pitcher Garret Stephenson lined a ball into right field for what appeared to be his long-awaited second hit of the season, only to get thrown out at first by Braves right fielder Brian Jordan? We almost had a replay Monday, when Stephenson -- who was 1 for 44 (.023) at the time -- blooped another apparent hit to right against the Pirates. This time, right fielder Alex Ramirez charged it, trying to determine whether his best play was at the plate or on Stephenson at first. But before the drama could mount, Ramirez overran the ball. So it rolled all the way to the wall, allowing Stephenson to inflate his average to a lofty .044. Stephenson later confessed, to the St. Louis Post Dispatch's Rick Hummel, that as he headed up the line, he was terrified of being thrown out at first on a "hit" for the second time in the same season. "I'm not like molasses or anything," Stephenson said. "But I'm really not that quick." Mound visitor of the week Bugs weren't the only non-humans to make a conspicuous appearance at a ballpark near you this week. During last Sunday's Cleveland-Seattle game at Jacobs Field, the game had to be halted several times while a squirrel cavorted around the field. We know squirrels normally hang out in parks -- but not this kind of park. At one point, Indians starter Dave Burba had to stop pitching -- because the squirrel appeared to be heading for the mound. "I was waiting to see if they were going to send someone out to get him off me," Burba told the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Paul Hoynes. "Then I wondered if he was going to field a ground ball for me." The Indians finally dispatched one of their ball boys out to chase the squirrel off the field. But it eventually took the ball boy, two policemen and two Indians outfielders (Wil Cordero and Kenny Lofton) to drive the squirrel through a door in the left-field wall. "It looked like they've been watching 'Rawhide' on TV the way they herded him through there," said Travis Fryman. Three-peat of the week In theory, it's one of those records that ought to be mathematically impossible: Three sacrifice flies in one inning? But if it's so impossible, how come the Yankees have managed to do it twice just this season? (It had happened only one other time -- to the White Sox, on July 1, 1962 -- in the history of baseball.) But the Yankees did it once this year on June 29, with Bobby Higginson making it possible by dropping one of the sacrifice flies. This time, last Saturday, Angels left fielder Ron Gant made it doubly possible -- by dropping a fly ball and by flunking math class. Gant, who actually has played great in left field this season, already had been involved in two sacrifice flies in the inning -- one of which he'd clanked for an error -- when Clay Bellinger bopped a long fly ball toward the track in left. Gant backtracked, gathered it in, then leaned against the wall, thinking there were three outs. Nope. Only two. So Jorge Posada was able to tag up from second base and score, for the historic third sac fly of the inning. Center fielder Darin Erstad finally got Gant's attention, but too late. "Even my son, who is 5-years-old, knows how many outs there are," Gant said. "It was just a bone-headed mistake. If Ersty wasn't yelling at me, I'd probably still be holding the ball." Ex-zero heroes of the week As our own Rob Neyer reported recently, the Marlins' catchers were in danger of becoming the first entire position to make it through a season homerless since Otis Nixon's platoon of 1995 Rangers center fielders -- and the first catchers since Alex Trevino's 1980 Mets shin-guard patrol. But call off the Otis Nixon-Alex Trevino watch, because the Marlins are off the schneid. Ramon Castro finally hit the first homer of the year by a Florida catcher last Friday. And even though he had to go to Coors Field, it still counts. Before that, Mike Redmond, Paul Bako, Sandy Martinez and Castro had combined to go 396 trotless at-bats. They'd even had to suffer the indignity of losing Bako to the Braves on a waiver claim last month, only to have him go to Atlanta and then hit his first home run against the Marlins. But thanks to Castro, Redmond and his buddies can forget all that. "I was the happiest guy out there," Redmond said. "I'm living vicariously through Ramon Castro right now." Dramatists of the week No one is sure how the Red Sox keep on winning. But they do. After surviving Pedro Martinez' astounding five-run first inning and still winning in extra innings Thursday, the Red Sox had won four times in their last 11 games in their final at-bat. And seven times in their last 27 games, they'd come from two runs behind or more to win. They didn't do that any times in their first 97 games of the year. "Why play the first eight innings?" Trot Nixon asked the Boston Globe's Gordon Edes. "Let's just go straight to the ninth. We'd finish a lot quicker." Draft dodger of the week The Twins lost the rights to their first sandwich pick, pitcher Aaron Heilman (No. 31 overall) Tuesday, when he attended his first class of the school year at Notre Dame. Heilman then went to a news conference, where he said: "I never thought I'd be announcing to the world I'm going to class." Trivia answer Roberto Kelly, Dave Martinez, Todd Zeile. Jayson Stark is a senior writer at ESPN.com. Week in Review appears each Friday. | ALSO SEE Jayson Stark archive Tale of Tape: Mayne vs. Bell AUDIO/VIDEO   The Mets' newest pitcher Derek Bell was looking to have some fun.wav: 49 k RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6 | ||||||||
