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Updated: June 18, 5:14 PM ET Wild Pitches: Ortiz forgets something at home By Jayson Stark ESPN.com | |||||||||||||||||
Way back in another lifetime, when we were in Little League, we once missed home plate with the winning run. Which wasn't a fun experience in the middle of a 19-game losing streak.
Since you don't tend to forget moments like that, we've watched about 100,000 ballgames since then, waiting for somebody -- anybody -- to come along and match that feat, so we wouldn't feel so bad.
We've heard of rain delays, snow delays and power-outage delays. But last Saturday, the Colorado Rockies had one of the great delays ever. A Stanley Cup delay. As the Avalanche closed in on a win in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals, the Rockies thought it would make their customers happy if they put the magic moment up there on the video board. Little did they know it would mean a five-minute delay in the game, after which 15,000 people left the baseball game to go join the hockey party. Uh, was that good? "It wasn't even the wildest delay I was ever involved in," Rockies coach-witticist Rich Donnelly told Wild Pitches. "I was in New York once, in 1998, and they stopped the game to show the entire Belmont Stakes." Much as we appreciate this willingness by baseball to acknowledge the outside world, you have to wonder how inspired an idea it is to stop a real game in its tracks for five or 10 minutes when no acts of meteorological significance are involved. "Yeah, well, apparently it didn't bother the Cardinals," Donnelly said. "They scored 12 runs that night." And since this was Coors Field, we also need to note: They scored 12 and won (12-3). Flood brothers of the week It would be tough to think of anything good that could come out of 36 inches of rain. But that didn't stop the Astros' pitching staff from ruminizing last weekend, during their road trip to Arlington, on which feature of Enron Field they'd most like to see take on more water than it could hold. "I just hope the Crawford Boxes (the ever-popular left-field boxes which seem, to many pitchers, to be stationed shallower than their leftfielder) at Enron are washed away," Scott Elarton told the Houston Chronicle's Richard Justice. Line of the week (NCAA Dept.) The average College World Series game this year featured 15 runs. Which is how stuff like this happens. This is the line of Tennessee freshman Patrick Hicklen on Monday against Georgia, in a game his team won: 5 IP, 12 H, 11 R, 11 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 2 HR, 1 HBP.Tennessee trailed, 11-9, when Hicklen departed, then rallied to win, 19-12. No pitcher in the American League has been able to figure out how to stop Manny Ramirez this year. But he proved last weekend he was, in fact, stoppable. He caught the flu. Ramirez was so sick, he couldn't even get out of bed to come to the ballpark last Sunday. And when he finally did show up at Fenway the next day, the Boston Herald's Michael Silverman, reported his voice was scratchy. And his uniform pants seemed even baggier than usual. Asked how much weight he'd lost, Ramirez said: "No, I'm using Rich Garces' pants." Comerican of the week The Tigers traded for Chris Holt last winter because they thought he was made for Comerica Park. Oops. He's 1-5, with a 6.90 ERA at home. And he's even allowed more home runs per nine innings at Comerica than he did last year at Enron Field, which is practically impossible. Asked by Booth Newspapers' Danny Knobler if he thought Comerica had gotten into Holt's head, manager Phil Garner replied: "It's way too early to be mental. It took Juan Gonzalez a month until this park got in his head." Gopherballs of the week Most of us will never know what it feels like to give up a home run to Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire. So let's ask the real victims. First, here's Anaheim's Pat Rapp, who gave up Bonds' 33rd of the year Monday, then said he was trying to get a fastball in: "It got out," he quipped, "a lot quicker than it got in." Meanwhile, Kansas City reliever Kris Wilson made the first start of his big-league career on Wednesday -- and held the Cardinals to one run on seven innings. Except the one run was a classic McGwire bomb that came within five rows of carrying over the entire left-field bleachers in Kansas City. Asked about having that prodigious blast be the only run he allowed, Wilson said: "It should have probably counted three runs, as far as he hit it." Coors Classic of the week The Mariners thought they had baseball pretty well figured out until they arrived at Coors Field this week. Then the usual insanity ensued. They started with a 10-9 game in which the Mariners and Rockies combined for nine homers. And it took a ninth-inning Mike Cameron homer, and a leaping catch by Stan Javier to pull back a Todd Helton homer, to end those festivities. "I've been through plenty of games like that here," Javier said. "I'm getting too old for them." Then the teams finished up their series with one of those beloved day-night Coors doubleheaders. The first game was particularly bizarre. Nobody could see the ball against the sky. There were four errors and many more misjudged air balls -- and not just by the guys wearing the gloves. "At one point," said Rich Donnelly, "they almost called the infield fly rule -- on a ball that went to the warning track. I saw the ump. He almost put his hand up. Then he pulled it back. But some day that's going to happen. They'll call an infield fly -- and a guy will catch it diving into the outfield wall." Run machine of the week Dave Burba is tied for the American League lead in wins, with a record of 8-2 (heading into his start Friday in Pittsburgh). Dave Burba also has a 5.68 ERA. How is this possible? Well, the Indians have scored no fewer than seven runs in any of his wins. That would be one reason. After hearing last Saturday, after win No. 8, that his team was averaging 8.5 runs a game in his victories, even Burba was surprised. "I don't really know what to say," he said. "I guess ... thanks." Piazza to go of the week It's the goal of Week in Review emissary Lawrence Rocca, of the Newark Star Ledger, to get the great Mike Piazza to say something funny at least once every week. Here's this week's entry: After pinch-hitting last Friday in a loss at Tampa Bay, Piazza made the final out -- but continued to make contact after the game. He took his bat all the way up to the clubhouse, then pounded it against the thick metal door to the equipment room. Not surprisingly, that left the door visibly dented -- and slightly bent. This door assault came only a couple of weeks after reliever Armando Benitez got billed $4,000 by the Giants for his interior decorating of the clubhouse at Pac Bell Park. So the Mets may not be wrecking the National League, but they're responsible for plenty of wreckage once they leave the field. "I think we lead the league in that category," Piazza said. "I don't know how many more things we can destroy." Incidentally, Piazza told Rocca he enjoys seeing his funny quotes in print (and, we presume, in cyberspace). "It's easy to get addicted to the quips," he said. "It's like crack. One hit and you're hooked." And like crack, let us advise all the kids out there about those quips: Don't try that home. Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com. Wild Pitches appears each Friday. |
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