In southern California, they're so innovative about most things in life, they roller-blade to the tanning salon, listening to their MP3 tune list on their cordless headphones.
But for some reason, when it comes to modern-day sport scheduling, they're still using the same old math their grandfathers used. To wit (whatever that means):
Four teams in two sports isn't divisible into one multipurpose stadium on one day.
|  | | If all goes as planned on Sept. 9, D-Backs pitcher Brian Anderson might be asked on occasion to tackle Chargers QB Doug Flutie. |
In San Diego these days, they're contemplating that particular math equation, thanks to the following, apparently unsolveable developments:
The National League schedule says the Padres are going to play the Diamondbacks on Sept. 9, at lovely Qualcomm Stadium.
Meanwhile, the National Football League schedule says the Chargers are going to play the Redskins on Sept. 9, right there at that same lovely Qualcomm Stadium.
To most people, this would look like your basic hopeless scheduling conflict. To the two occupants of lovely Qualcomm Stadium -- the Padres and Chargers -- this sounds like a good excuse to scream at each other a while, then possibly file a lawsuit.
But that's because they're using that old schedule math -- the math that says this stadium isn't big enough for the both of them.
Well, tsk, tsk (whatever that means). If they'd just use a little modern, innovative thinking -- or at least ask the Week in Review modern innovation staff -- they could not only solve this dilemma. They could make this the most-watched sporting event in San Diego history.
We say: Conflict, schmonflict. Just play both games at the same time.
Tell us that wouldn't be a way more memorable sporting extravaganza than the Chargers losing, 49-26, in the Super Bowl.
Impossible, you say? Of course not. We even checked with a modern innovative Diamondback just to see if he thought this little multisport experiment was workable. By the time we were through, noted left-handed innovator Brian Anderson sounded as if he was even looking forward to it.
"I think we match up pretty well with the Chargers," Anderson told Week in Review. "But it's going to be different, going into that game, having to study the hitters, the progressions and the blitz coverages."
Yes, but in this case, different is where it's at. Shake off the catcher -- and look for your secondary receiver. Go out there with your best stuff -- and stuff the run at the same time. Anything will be possible, with a little creativity.
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Wild, wild, wild
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Click here for Jayson Stark's Wild Pitches from the past week.
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"We're gonna try and run at Junior Seau," Anderson game-planned, "take the game right to him -- and Phil Nevin."
Precisely. Hit-and-run one minute, bump-and-run the next. Whatever it takes.
Asked whether he could hang in the pocket and still throw strikes against an all-out blitz, Anderson sounded concerned.
"I think if they get good pressure on me," he said, "it will be tough to get the ball down and in."
No doubt. But who knows where else this might lead? There would be all sorts of rule questions. For instance, if an outfielder had to throw to the plate, could it be intercepted?
"It could," Anderson theorized. "But it couldn't be somebody off the bench. The only way we'd allow that is if there's another runner on base. So if he's rounding third and coming to the plate and another runner is heading for third, the guy at third could pick it off."
Which could lead to a pass-interference call. Against a third baseman. Another tremendous innovation. But it wouldn't be the last.
Suppose someone hits a ball through the goal posts, for instance? Then what happens?
"It could be like arena football," Anderson said. "You put the goal posts up in center field, and if someone goes dead central (through the posts), you tack on a run."
Wait, we warned. That could hurt Brian Anderson's ERA.
"Actually," said Anderson, whose ERA at the time was 14.14, "I think it might lower mine."
There would be complications for the umpires, too, naturally.
If they call a balk, for example, "they'd definitely throw a flag," Anderson said. "On a normal balk call, the first-base umpire or the plate umpire come out waving their arms, anyway, to get your attention. So throw the flag. That would be a whole lot better."
And even the commissioner's office might have to get involved. Now that Sandy Alderson has imposed limits on pads for hitters, there's no telling what kind of rulings he might have to hand down when he gets a load of the Chargers.
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“ |
We're gonna try and
run at Junior Seau, take the game right to him -- and Phil Nevin. ” |
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— Brian Anderson |
Anderson proposed that Alderson should still have jurisdiction to approve all padding.
"Yes, he would," Anderson said. "He'd say, 'Ten inches, and that's it, buddy.' Hey, it's a tough league."
Then we'd have those technical-type questions, such as: Should the teams switch sides every inning -- maybe move home plate out to center field?
"I don't know. The fans wouldn't be happy with that one," Anderson said. "Those guys buying the big tickets (behind the plate) wouldn't like it when they find out they're in center field."
So to keep everybody happy and maintain as many multisport traditions as possible, he decided, "we could have halftime at the seventh-inning stretch. Just combine them. Halfway through the seventh, we'd come inside, and they could trumpet around for seven, eight minutes."
Then everybody could come back and move on to exciting late-game action. Which leads us to another question: If a team takes the lead, would it put in its closer -- or more defensive backs?
"If we take the lead in the seventh inning -- or the last two minutes -- we'll play a little prevent," Anderson announced. "We'll put in our nickel D with BK (Byung-Hyun Kim), (Russ) Springer and (Greg) Swindell. Then we'll let (Matt) Mantei come in at the end -- and take a knee."
Speaking of defensive backs, it's almost poetic that the Redskins are scheduled to play in this arena on this date. Because it gives fabled multisport sensation Deion Sanders all sorts of options.
Barring unforeseen developments, Drew Henson, Bo Jackson and Brian Jordan won't be able to make it. But with the Redskins in the mix, who knows what team Deion might play for in this thing?
"It would be like his entire career," Anderson said. "He's gonna do whatever he wants to do. If the Reds are still in it, he'll stay with the Reds. But if not, he'll finagle his way onto the Redskins roster and get into this game. It will be the Deion Invitational."
And any time there's a Deion Invitational, it's mandatory that the ESPN television network televise it, of course. But even that would get complicated. Which Sunday night broadcast crew would we use?
"It would have to be Jon Miller and Joe Theismann," Anderson said. "We have to bring the crews together -- to make this game the complete debacle it's going to be."
Hey, why not? In fact, just to make sure that was workable, we ran the idea past Jon Miller himself.
"So we'd have Sunday Night Baseball -- slash -- Football," Miller said. "That would be great."
Yep. Then stay tuned for "NFL -- slash -- Baseball -- slash -- Prime Time -- slash -- Tonight." On a cable system near you.
Milestone of the week
While we're on the subject of Jon Miller, let's turn now to the coolest 500th home run ever hit.
We are not, of course, referring to Eddie Murray's.
No, this was Barry Bonds' milestone. Tuesday at Pac Bell Park.
Not just a 500th homer, but a game-winning homer.
Not just a game-winning homer, but an eighth-inning game-winning homer.
And not just an eighth-inning game-winning homer, but a home run that sailed clear out of the ballpark.
Not only did it sail out of the ballpark, though, it landed in a body of water named for another member of the 500-Homer Club (McCovey Cove).
Come on. How 'bout that script? Who's writing this schlock?
"I asked (the legendary sportswriter) Leonard Koppett later," said Miller, who had the honor of calling this mighty blow for the Giants' local telecast. "Well, actually, I didn't ask. I declared. I said, 'When you add in everything, there could never have been a milestone home run as spectacular as this one.' And he agreed."
Well, so do we. At least in the realm of milestone 500th homers.
Besides all that other stuff we've already mentioned, we need to remember that this blast was staged amid the setting of a Giants-Dodgers game, the greatest west-coast sports rivalry ever.
And it came at the end of a sensational game, off a relief pitcher (Terry Adams) who hadn't allowed a run all season.
Then let's add in all these historical elements:
Bonds was only the second 500-homer man in history whose home run turned defeat into victory from the seventh inning on. The other, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, was Mike Schmidt. He hit a three-run game-winning homer for his 500th in 1987, with two outs in the ninth inning of a game his team trailed by a run. But Bonds' homer came at home, with his team in first place. Schmidt's came on the road, with his team in last place.
Bonds was also the first man in history whose 500th marked the fifth straight game in which he'd homered, according to SABR's David Vincent.
And maybe coolest of all, Bonds was just the second player ever to have his 500th homer fly over the fence and completely out of the stadium. The other, according to baseball historian Bill Jenkinson, was some fellow named Babe Ruth. The Babe's 500th soared over a short right-field porch in Cleveland and came down in Lexington Avenue, outside League Park. Ruth then traded 20 bucks and two autographed baseballs for the historic ball. Bonds is still negotiating with the guy in the boat who scooped up his ball.
But the unique design of Pac Bell, plus the invention of the light bulb, helped make Bonds' historic shot way cooler than the Babe's.
"When you're on the field at night at Pac Bell," Miller said, "behind right field, it's pitch black. It's The Void. What other park is there like that? There's something beyond the fence at every other park.
"So that's why Barry said afterward that it looked like slow motion, like the ball wasn't even moving. The ball was up there against the black. It's not like it was getting closer to any lights behind the fence. It was just the ball and the black -- and then it disappears -- into McCovey Cove."
What Jon Miller needed at that moment, obviously, was one of those handy-dandy instant-classic home-run calls that hundreds of our readers tried so valiantly to provide for him last year. But for some reason, as that ball headed for history, Miller said he was never moved to belt out, "Phoebe Cates has just left the pool," or anything like it.
"Actually," he said, "I was astounded. I have no memory of what I said. All I remember is being astounded. Your jaw drops. The second he hits it, you know it's gone. Then you know it's epic. That's why you could never make up ahead of time what you're going to say. How do you know what the situation's going to be?"
Uh, we'll take that as a hint not to stage another one of those helpful home-run-call contests this year, by the way.
But back to our story. It was mandatory, of course, that after Bonds had electrified the entire 415 area code, Giants closer Robb Nen immediately had to allow a leadoff single in the ninth, followed by a steal and a throwing error that put the tying run on third with no one out for the Dodgers. And it wouldn't have been any fun if Nen hadn't miraculously escaped that mess, finishing the game with a strikeout of Gary Sheffield.
"So forget the home run," Miller said. "This was a classic game, a game you remember for a long, long time. And then throw in that a 500th home run was the game-winning hit in the eighth inning."
Whoah. What a night.
Poetry dictated, obviously, that the man after whom McCovey Cove was named had to be in the park for this bomb. And Willie McCovey was. But it made us wonder one final thing:
How many home runs would Bonds have to hit to have a body of water named after him?
"We don't even know if he's going to stay with the Giants," Miller said. "Maybe he could go back to Pittsburgh, and they could rename the Monongahela the Barry Bonds River. It would be a great touch."
And a perfect Scott Boras free-agent negotiating perk, too. But that's a high tide for another time and place.
Ballpark comforts of the week
It was just last week, in this portion of cyberspace, where we used Pittsburgh's new PNC Park as an example of how the beauty and luxury of all these new ballparks could be a vastly overrated concept.
OK, we lied about that. They're the best thing to happen to baseball since cable.
But nowhere -- and we do mean nowhere -- is that new-ballpark ambiance doing more to improve just about everyone's quality of life than at new Miller Park in Milwaukee.
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“ |
Going to the stadium now is 200
percent different. Just walking in is different. You
could go into the old clubhouse and walk right
down the middle of the clubhouse and trip,
because they had humps right in the middle of the
floor. Here, it's nice to know you can walk around
without breaking your nose or
something. ” |
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— David Weathers, Brewers pitcher, on the difference between
Miller Park and County Stadium. |
Let's see if we can sum up the reasons for this fairly succinctly.
Life before Miller Park:
Brewers attempt to play baseball in temperatures suitable for the Iditarod, while birds waddle around the outfield, fog makes it impossible to tell which teams are playing, fans attempt to pick 50-year-old seat paint off their pants and the black-and-white scoreboard video screen is either replaying a Ron Belliard triple or a "Leave It to Beaver" rerun (no one is too sure which).
All righty, now here's life after Miller Park:
New $50-million roof closes out all painful Wisconsin climatalogical developments, as players play in short sleeves on lush, perfect surface, while fans chomp on peppercorn-seared tenderloin and watch Richie Sexson and Ben Sheets lead the Brewers to a brighter tomorrow.
So let's see. How would we compare the similarities of those two experiences?
"We play baseball," said Brewers reliever David Weathers. "That's about it."
As Weathers looks back now on his most vivid memories of County Stadium, he sounds more like a host on the "Discover Channel" than he does a professional baseball player.
"I remember we were playing last year in early April," Weathers told Week in Review. "It was like 21 degrees. The wind was blowing 20 miles an hour out of the north. And it was misting. It should have been snowing. But in Milwaukee, anything's possible.
"We had like two, three rain delays. And I wore everything I could possibly put on my body: Long handle underwear. A tee-shirt. My jersey over a sweatshirt. And a big parka over that. And gloves. And a ski cap. And I was still cold. Just miserable. Then I went in and pitched the seventh and eighth innings. But it went good. Nobody wanted to swing the bat. They were all frozen."
What memories. And that was a good night, where you lowered your ERA because the other team couldn't defrost its bats. Or its arms.
Ah, but the essence of County Stadium was more than just the cold.
"We had birds, fog, mosquitoes that could carry a baby away -- biggest mosquitoes I've ever seen," Weathers said. "We just had so many elements. And once it warmed up, we had every bug that's ever been born find its way to County Stadium. We thought about putting up one of those big bug lights in the bullpen so we could get through the game without swatting all night."
Now it's hard to believe that, with memories like these, Weathers wouldn't be nostalgic for those good old days at County Stadium. But he's about as nostalgic as a wrecking crew.
"You go into Fenway Park or Wrigley Field or Yankee Stadium, you can't do anything to those places," he said. "They're baseball shrines. But County Stadium was just like a huge A-ball stadium."
In other words, he and his teammates would be happy to implode it personally.
"Going to the stadium now is 200 percent different," he said. "Just walking in is different. You could go into the old clubhouse and walk right down the middle of the clubhouse and trip, because they had humps right in the middle of the floor. Here, it's nice to know you can walk around without breaking your nose or something.
"There's a whole different feeling in the whole organization. This is the most optimism, about the baseball team and the stadium, there's ever been. The overall atmosphere is so much better. We used to refer to County Stadium as a 3 3/4-A stadium. We're in the big leagues now."
And little did they know how futuristic those big leagues could be. Weathers doesn't just talk like a guy enjoying a new stadium. He talks like a guy who just tumbled out of a time machine that transported him out of life in 1952.
"We have TVs now," he said. "We have electronics. We have a stereo system. Oh, we had a stereo in County Stadium, but it was like from 1978, with a -- what do they call those things that go around -- turntables? -- and one old speaker with about a two-inch woofer. You could only hear it if you got right up next to it. But now we have a real stereo. Makes life a lot more enjoyable."
They even have a new Foreman Grill right there in the clubhouse. So every day is not just a ball game. It's a family barbecue, with chef Weathers manning the spatula.
"I do burgers, chicken," Weathers reported, in an apparent audition for a spot on ESPN's next endeavor, EAT-SPN. "I'll cook for my boys. Whatever they need."
And now, they can actually see the new state-of-the-art video board. Which (get this) shows videos in real, living color.
So Weathers says no one misses "the old scoreboard, the so-called Jumbotron." They didn't exactly have technical difficulties with that board. "I think they just ran out of light bulbs," he said.
But we don't want to make life at Miller Park sound 100 percent idyllic -- because that's not reality. One trouble is that with all that newness surrounding them, the Brewers have to tread softly for a while.
For one thing, Weathers said, "we're all afraid we're going to break something. You don't want to be the first to break anything. Hopefully, somebody will break something soon, so everybody can relax."
For another thing, it's also making it difficult for many of these players to fulfill their ballplayer responsibilities by spitting pretty much every 30 seconds. At least at County Stadium, expectorating was a tradition practically half a century old.
"So here," Weathers reported, "I try to limit myself now to 10 or 12 a day." Weathers said.
And we know the entire Selig family (and the Miller Corp.) appreciates that, too.
For the pitchers, though, there has been one slightly more tangible down side to Miller Park. In the first nine games there, 99 runs were scored. And the 31 home runs hit were more than double the 15 in the first nine games last year at County Stadium. The Brewers even had one game last weekend where they gave up five home runs and still won.
But if you think a little hitter-friendliness is enough to cause that Brewers pitching staff to start pining for their old park, where apparent home-run balls often froze solid in mid-air, well ... think again.
"I'll take a couple of points on my ERA any time," said David Weathers, "if I can stay warm, and I don't get wet, and I don't get bugs all over me."
Mystery slugger of the week
Here's our definition of a very goofy baseball game:
Bobby Bonilla pitches. And commits a balk.
And a pitcher hits a pinch home run on the first pitch thrown to him in his career -- but never throws any pitches himself.
This really happened Tuesday in St. Louis, where the Cardinals managed to jazz up a 17-4 whomping by the Diamondbacks with the tremendous managerial creativity Tony La Russa is famous for.
It was 15-4 in the ninth, when Bonilla made his long-awaited pitching debut, in big-league season No. 16. And quite an inning he had, too.
It went: homer (Erubiel Durazo), walk, balk, fly ball, single, single, double play (Craig Counsell).
Now you're liable to see just about any of that any time an outfielder takes the mound, except for one thing:
A balk? On Bobby Bonilla? With the score 16-4 in the ninth? You have to be a darned conscientious umpire to make a call like that.
"He wasn't deceiving the runner," La Russa grumbled afterward. "The runner didn't care."
Good point. But the rest of Bonilla's performance was kind of interesting, anyway.
Bonilla on Durazo's homer: "I was just trying to keep the ball down -- but evidently I got one up that had some distance on it."
Bonilla on why he worked so fast: "We were getting our butts beat. I wasn't going to work slow."
And finally, Bonilla on how good a pitcher he was the last time he tried this -- back when he was in high school in the Bronx: "I guess that's why they put a bat in my hands."
But as entertaining as his performance was, it was upstaged by the work of rookie reliever Gene Stechschulte, who strolled up to pinch-hit in the sixth inning -- and pounded the first pitch he'd ever seen, from Armando Reynoso, into Home Run Land.
Now this was a feat you sure don't see every day. Stechschulte was only the sixth pitcher in history to hit a home run on the first pitch of his career.
And the fifth pinch-hitter to hit a home run on the first pitch of his career.
And the first pitcher ever to hit a pinch homer on the first pitch of his career.
Below is a list of pitchers who homered on the first pitch of their careers:
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Player
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Team
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Date
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Clise Dudley
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Dodgers
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April 27, 1929
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Bill Lefebvre
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Red Sox
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June 10, 1938
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Don Rose
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Angels
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May 24, 1972
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Jim Bullinger
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Cubs
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June 8, 1992
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Esteban Yan
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Devil Rays
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June 4, 2000
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Gene Stechschulte
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Cardinals
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April 17, 2001
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And here's a list of pinch hitters who homered on the first pitch of their careers:
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Player
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Team
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Date
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Eddie Morgan
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Cardinals
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April 14, 1936
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Chuck Tanner
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Braves
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April 12, 1955
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Brant Alyea
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Senators
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Sept. 12, 1965
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Al Woods
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Blue Jays
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April 7, 1977
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Gene Stechschulte
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Cardinals
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April 17, 2001
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And "that," Stechschulte told Week in Review emissary Rick Hummel, of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, "doesn't make too much sense."
Nor did much else in this game. But at least five years ago, when he was playing a lot of shortstop at Ashland University, Stechschulte did hit cleanup for his college team.
"Most of the guys back home still think of me as a hitter and not a pitcher," he said. "So they're probably more surprised that I'm pitching."
But he said some of his other friends told him: "They put your name wrong in the paper. They thought somebody had pinch-hit for me."
He tried to tell them that no, he really did do this. "But some of them weren't buying it," he said. "They wanted a second opinion, I think."
At any rate, Stechschulte found out all he really needed to know about what really matters in the world these days. And let's just give you one hint: It isn't pitching.
"I got five calls after I got my first win," he said. "I got like 40 after my first home run."
Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com. Week in Review appears each Friday.
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