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Wild Pitches By Jayson Stark ESPN.com | |||||||||||||||||
| Box score line of the week Andersonville wasn't the place to reside Wednesday. And the pitching Andersons -- Brian (Diamondbacks), Jimmy (Pirates) and Matt (Tigers) -- were living proof. Their lines of the day: Brian Anderson (vs. Dodgers): 3 IP, 6 H, 8 R, 6 ER, 2 BB, 0 K, 3 HR Jimmy Anderson (vs. Reds): 3 1/3 IP, 11 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 2 K Matt Anderson (vs. Twins): 1/3 IP, 6 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 1 BB, 0 K The R-rated total line of Anderson Nation: 6.2 IP, 23 H, 20 R, 17 ER, 4 BB, 2 K, 3 HR Quote of the day From Brian Anderson's manager, Bob Brenly: "The Anderson factor. I bet Gillian (X Files) Anderson missed a line." Bunt of the week When the score at Coors Field is 14-10, you think of baseballs disappearing into the Rocky Mountains. But last weekend, one of the biggest plays in the Padres' 14-10 win over Colorado was a bunt that hopped all the way through the infield to the outfield grass. It was laid down by leadoff man Damian Jackson with runners on first and second. It skipped past pitcher Mike Hampton. Then it arrived at the infield dirt, where second baseman Todd Walker was trying to dance around baserunner Donaldo Mendez. By the time Walker fought off the pick, the ball had hopped right past him, too. And it didn't stop until it was in right field, allowing a run to score and Jackson to bolt all the way to second. "Only at Coors Field," Rockies coach Rich Donnelly told Wild Pitches, "can you see a push bunt turn into a double." Sacrificial fly of the week It isn't easy to score from second on a sacrifice fly under normal circumstances. But doing it on one shoe, after pulling a hamstring, adds some major degree-of-difficulty points. That was the miraculous feat pulled off last week by Phillies track star Brian Hunter, though. He was on second base when Preston Wilson made a lunging, over-the-shoulder catch of Doug Glanville's rocket to deep center field. Then his harrowing journey began. As he approached third, he saw coach John Vukovich waving him home. But as he went to accelerate around the bag, he popped his hamstring. Then, as he kept on trucking, he felt himself running right out of his left shoe. So in order to make it the rest of the way home, Hunter had to run like a ballet dancer. "I was running on my tiptoes," Hunter told Wild Pitches, "because I didn't want to lose my shoe -- but I didn't want to have a complete blowout, either." Eventually, the shoe flipped off, too. But Hunter scored anyway -- and proceeded directly to the disabled list. You've heard of Shoeless Joe Jackson? Well, now we've got Shoeless Brian Hunter. Or do we. "No, it's 'Spikeless,' " Glanville said. "Not Shoeless. It's the year 2001. We have to modernize the term." Patriot of the week Perhaps you've asked yourself this question: How long would it take to play three national anthems, back to back to back, before a baseball game? Well, we can now supply the answer, because the Wild Pitches staff witnessed this spectacle personally -- twice -- before those Texas-Toronto games in San Juan. First night -- Canadian anthem (on a trumpet) followed by U.S. anthem, followed by Puerto Rican anthem, total time, wire to wire: 6 minutes, 27 seconds. Then, the next day, the anthem-eers (topped by the amazing, star-spangled Jose Feliciano) really stretched it out -- to 6 minutes, 42 seconds. It was enough time to make the starting pitchers' arms stiffen up. Which, as a matter of fact, is exactly why Texas starter Rick Helling missed every darned note. "Hey, I wasn't going to go out there and stand in the sun for a half-hour and listen to three anthems," Helling told Wild Pitches. "So I stayed inside and stayed cool. "That's what this game's all about," Helling said. "Making adjustments." Milestone of the week When Jeff Cirillo homered for the Rockies on April 4, he hit the major leagues' 200,000th home run since 1900. So we asked Rockies coach-witticist Rich Donnelly how many of them he would estimate were hit at Coors Field. "Oh," he replied, "about 198,000." Laser beam of the week For months, we've heard all the tales about the bionic throwing arm of new Mariners right fielder Ichiro Suzuki. But Wednesday, we finally got to witness it in real American life. Phew. Oakland's Terrence Long thought he was going to go from first to third Wednesday night on a single by Ramon Hernandez. Wrong he was. Suzuki unfurled a 200-foot beam-of-light FedEx to third base that nailed Long by 10 feet. The reviews are in: From second baseman Bret Boone, to the Seattle Times' Bob Finnigan: "I only heard the ball as it went past my ear. When I saw Long head for third, I just said, 'You're out. Period, man, you are out.' And was he ever out." From third baseman David Bell: "I was looking to take it on the hop -- and it never hopped." From Mariners manager Lou Piniella: "I'll tell you what. You could hang a lot of clothes on that throw." From the old right fielder in Mariner Land, Jay Buhner, to the Tacoma News Tribune's Larry LaRue: "When he made that throw, my arm twitched. I've got to go ice it now, just thinking about that throw." From center fielder Mike Cameron: "I thought to myself, 'Well, I guess they won't run on this dude again.' " Reincarnation of the week Break up the Twins. When they swept the Tigers this week to swell their record to (gulp) 6-2, it marked the first time they'd been four games over .500 since the strike. And that strike, by the way, was seven years ago. Heck, the honorable Gov. Ventura was still working on his full nelsons back then. Informed by the Minneapolis Star Tribune's Jim Souhan that his team hadn't been four games over sea level since June 30, 1994, outfielder Matt Lawton replied: "Man. I don't know if that's a good stat or a bad stat." Ray of hope of the week Just when it looked as if the Devil Rays might go 1-161 this year, they arose Wednesday to beat Toronto, 4-3. Of course, in the process, they still managed to survive falling three runs behind, allowing their 15th unearned run of the year on two errors by the pitcher (Ryan Rupe) and getting outhit for the seventh time in eight games. And even when they took the lead in the ninth, it was the first time they'd been ahead in 44 innings. So a reporter observed to manager Larry Rothschild afterward that it may not have been the most artistic win in franchise history. "Let me tell you something," Rothschild said. "It's the Mona Lisa to me." Fountain fan of the week Speaking of 0-fers, Royals third baseman Joe Randa was 0 for 2001 (0 for 15, to be technical) before he thumped a home run into the world-famous fountains, beyond the left-field fence, last Saturday. But it wasn't the sight of his home-run ball landing in a waterfall that revved Randa's engine. "It felt real good," he told the Kansas City Star's Bob Dutton, "just to finally see the ball land somewhere without someone catching it." Reprieves of the week As April Fools jokes go, they were the best kind. For Abraham Nunez of the Pirates and David Newhan of the Phillies, a funny thing happened just before Opening Day. They were cut from their teams. Then they weren't. But to really make it back, they both had to do more driving than Emerson Fittipaldi. Nunez was sent out by the Pirates on March 30. So the next day, he was driving north to Nashville with his wife and son when the Pirates found out they had to put Mike Benjamin on the disabled list. So they called Nunez on his cell phone -- and told him to keep driving. All the way to Pittsburgh. But when he decided to stop for the night in West Virginia, he couldn't find a hotel room. After pulling off at "20 exits," he still was room-less. So he wound up motoring all the way to Washington, Pa., just outside of Pittsburgh, where he stopped so the family could finally get some sleep. In their car. In a hotel parking lot. "It's great to be back in the big leagues again," he told the Beaver County Times' John Perrotto. "But I hope I never have to go through another trip like that again to get here." Nunez's adventure makes Newhan's trip to The Show look like a drive around the block. But he, too, was told he was being sent to Triple-A. And he, too, began driving north from Florida to Scranton. At least he only got as far as Gainesville before the Phillies reached him on his cell phone and told him that he was back in the big leagues, courtesy of Rob Ducey's strained calf. And at least he only had to turn around and drive to Miami, where the Phillies were playing the Marlins. "They told me I could be back soon," Newhan said. "They didn't say it would be this soon." Rumbler-stumbler of the week To be a qualified pinch-runner, you need to be able to score from second on a single in the ninth. But not the way the Giants' Calvin Murray did it April 3. In a tie game against the Padres, Murray fell down between second and third, while trying to score on a single by Shawon Dunston. Then he stumbled again rounding third. Then catcher Ben Davis' throw back to third bounced away from third baseman Phil Nevin. So Murray headed home and was clearly a dead duck when the throw home beat him from here to Sausalito. Except Davis couldn't hold onto it. And that enabled Murray to stagger in, get a foot on the plate and score anyhow. This wasn't actually a Saturday Night Live skit. It just looked like one on TV. "I probably haven't slipped twice in 20 years," Murray told the San Francisco Chronicle's Henry Schulman. "Tonight, I slipped twice in six seconds." Amazingly, though, he was back to terrorize the Padres again a week later. This time, he was pinch-running again in the ninth, again in a tie game. This time, Padres closer Trevor Hoffman bounced a splitter in the dirt. And this time, the baseball literally disappeared. Inside catcher Wiki Gonzalez's chest protector. Murray started to run. Then, unsure where the ball was, he stopped. Then, "the catcher pulled the ball out," he said, "like a rabbit out of his hat." So off he went again, only to get into another rundown, only to scramble into third when no Padre covered the bag. Only to find that in the end, none of that mattered, because plate ump Dale Scott had already ruled "dead ball." Except he was having trouble digesting that at the time. "The umpire said, 'Stop at third.' " Murray said. "I said, 'Huh? I'm not going back to second after all that.' You couldn't pry me off the base." He then scored the winning run on a sacrifice fly. Of course. By the way, have we mentioned that Murray was the hitter at the plate in spring training when Randy Johnson threw a pitch that hit a passing dove? Murray doubled on the next pitch -- and hasn't stopped coming out on the right end of all these miracles since. "Maybe that dove," he said, "is the angel on my shoulder." Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com. Wild Pitches appears each Friday. |
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