Stark: Wild Pitches

MLB

  Scores
  Schedules
  Standings
  Statistics
  Transactions
  Injuries
  Players
  Message Board
  Minor Leagues
  MLB en español

Sport Sections

Friday, June 29
Updated: June 30, 11:34 AM ET
Wild Pitches

By Jayson Stark
ESPN.com

Mathematician of the week
After watching Greg Maddux all these years, we'd finally come to the conclusion that he didn't just do it all. He knew it all.


	Maddux

He knew what pitch the hitter was expecting. He knew where. He knew why. He knew exactly what to throw and what not to throw at any given moment.

But this week, he proved there's one thing he doesn't know:

How to count to four.

In the fifth inning Monday, he came to the plate against Phillies reliever Vicente Padilla. What followed was one of his most adventurous at-bats ever.

He fouled off one pitch. He missed the second. He fouled off another. Then came ball one, another foul, then two more balls.

That made three balls, two strikes, if you're calculating along at home. But Maddux nonchalantly tossed his bat away and headed for first base after the third ball.

Which confused everybody -- except him.

After a delay for some head-scratching, the umpiring crew convened and performed a manual recount. When enough umpires voted for ball three, Maddux was waved back to home plate.

Whereupon he returned, retrieved his bat, fouled off another pitch -- then struck out on the ninth pitch.

So what happened?

"I never see that many pitches," he told Wild Pitches. "I figured it had to be (ball) four, because usually, I'm out of there in three or less."

Asked why he didn't argue, manager Bobby Cox said: "I didn't want him on base in the first place."

Bleacher creature of the week
He has always been known for his soaring homers and his flowing locks. Well, for Mike Piazza all of a sudden, one out of two ain't bad.

	“	I thought, 'Is someone running somewhere? Is the batboy stealing third?' I was a little perplexed. I was in a little bit of a quandary, and I didn't know why. Then I realized they were admiring my hair. When you see a quality hairdo like this, I guess the reaction is overwhelming. ”
		— Platinum-topped Mike Piazza on the crowd's reaction to his new 'do

He's obviously always heard that blondes had more fun. So on Monday, with the Mets in a four-game losing streak during which he couldn't possibly have much less fun, Piazza strolled into a Chicago hair salon, got his long locks chopped and, in the major hair development of the day, did the blonde thing.

And it once again proved that old philosophical adage: Change your hair, change your life.

The first sign Piazza had that this move might not be viewed as just another haircut came when he was having trouble making it out to the field because the press was asking so many questions about it.

"It's another news shortage," he said, 100 percent correctly.

Later, Piazza would be stunned by the buzz in the seats of Wrigley Field after he flipped off his mask to chase a pitch in the dirt. When he looked up, he saw the runners on first and second hadn't tried to advance. So the roar of the crowd confused him -- for a moment.

"I thought, 'Is someone running somewhere? Is the batboy stealing third?'" Piazza said. "I was a little perplexed. I was in a little bit of a quandary, and I didn't know why. Then I realized they were admiring my hair. When you see a quality hairdo like this, I guess the reaction is overwhelming."

But the reaction didn't end there.

Mets publicist Jay Horwitz told the Newark Star Ledger's Lawrence Rocca that he'd gotten a call Thursday from MGM Studios -- to see if Piazza was interested in hosting a screening of an upcoming movie, which would have been, Horwitz said, about "blondes having more fun."

Piazza's intrigued response: "I need more information."

It had better be excellent information, though, because Piazza hinted a return to his original "do" might be lurking in his very near future. He didn't go platinum to match his credit cards. He did it, he said, just for fun.

But he assured Rocca he won't be doing that Dennis Rodman thing and change hair colors every few days.

"You can't compare me," he said, "to Dennis Rodman."

And for that, we're all eternally grateful.

Contortionist of the week
Many times, we've seen Vladimir Guerrero hit pitches that can't be hit. But Monday in Florida, he outdid himself.

Marlins smokeballer A.J. Burnett threw him a tailing fastball that kept veering in on Guerrero until it was a foot and a half inside.

Guerrero swung at it anyway.

And hit a line drive that not only stayed fair -- it left the park.

Burnett -- who hadn't allowed a home run in his previous nine starts -- stood on the mound in astonishment as Guerrero rounded the bases. And he hadn't stopped being astonished the next day.

"I saw him before BP," he told Wild Pitches. "And I said, 'Are you kidding me? That pitch would have hit you.' And he said: 'I know. That's why I swung.'"

Non-trade of the week
For the sixth time in five years, the Astros and Tigers made a deal (last week the Houston traded Jose Lima for Detroit's Dave Mlicki). But unlike most of those deals, this one contained a missing person:

Brad Ausmus.

The previous three times Tigers general manager Randy Smith had made a player-for-player swap with the team employing his father, Tal, as president, Ausmus was heading one way or the other. So when Ausmus found himself missing from this deal, he was the most confused man in baseball.

"I was nervous when I heard who we were dealing with," Ausmus told Booth Newspapers' Tigers beat man, Danny Knobler. "Apparently, Randy doesn't like me anymore."

Revolving door of the week
Speaking of that Astros-Tigers trade, Mlicki arrived in Arizona on Monday to meet his Astros teammates. As he prepared for his first start with Houston the next day, he actually said:

"Maybe a change of scenery will help a little bit."

Only one problem with that change-of-scenery logic: Nine days earlier, Mlicki had started for the Tigers -- in Arizona.

In that start, he lasted four innings and gave up seven runs. In this start, he lasted 4 2/3 and gave up six runs. He allowed home runs to Damian Miller in each of them.

"I've been traded before," Mlicki said. "But this is a strange one."

Mystery slugger of the week
It's been 12 years since Mike Schmidt hit the 548th and final home run of his Hall of Fame career. So until Wednesday night, we'd gone 12 years without seeing this entry in any box score:

HR -- Schmidt.

Of all the people likely to end that drought, a pitcher who was 21 for 246 lifetime (.086) probably wouldn't have been the favorite. But Wednesday night, Pirates pitcher Jason Schmidt pulled within 547 of first place in that "Most Homers by a Schmidt" race -- with an improbable swat off the left-field foul pole, off Milwaukee's Jimmy Haynes.

"When I saw the ball go over the third baseman, I started running," Schmidt told the Beaver County Times' John Perrotto, "because I thought I might get a double out of it. I wasn't watching the ball. But then I heard a big cheer go up in the crowd. My first reaction was that something bad happened. Then, I saw the umpires signal a home run, and I couldn't believe it."

He wasn't the only one.

"I've never hit a ball that hard," catcher Jason Kendall deadpanned.

And when asked if he was stunned when he saw Schmidt's mighty blast hit that foul pole, manager Lloyd McClendon replied: "So stunned that they had to pick me up off the dugout floor."

Car pool of the week
Back on June 16, Luis Gonzalez's 27th home run of the season was caught by a lifeguard just before it plunked into the famous swimming pool at Arizona's Bank One Ballpark.

The home run was good. The catch was stylish. But you wouldn't have wanted to tell that to a fan named Kim Shadowens.

She'd been picked to win a car if a home run was hit into the pool in the first three innings that day. But when Gonzalez's homer landed in leather instead of water, she was told, "No deal."

Let us pause here for one word about that: Booooo!

We're happy to report, however, that the folks at Nissan agreed with us. They watched a videotape of the homer and decided to give her that car after all.

So on Monday, Gonzalez handed her the keys to a new Nissan Xterra and said: "I'm real happy for her."

However, dogged investigative reporting by the East Valley Tribune's Ed Price revealed that:

Where was Kim Shadowens when that home run landed? Jumping up and down in glee? Jumping up and down in anger? No. She was in the rest room.

Earlier that day, according to reliever Greg Swindell, three home runs were hit toward that very same pool. And that very same lifeguard missed all three of them.

Box score line of the week
It has now been five weeks since any big-league pitcher gave up 10 runs in a game. So we're heading for the Pacific Coast League to find this week's most crooked line.

The winner: Veteran lefthander Rick Krivda, Tuesday for Memphis, against the Tucson Sidewinders:

5 IP, 13 H, 11 R, 10 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 2 HBP.

Gopherball of the week

For the first time since June28, 1997, Arizona's Curt Schilling gave up four home runs in one game (to the Astros) Wednesday.

Even more notably, he did that and still won (7-5).

On one hand, those four homers gave Schilling the major-league lead in gopherballs -- with 23. On the other hand, he's also 12-2 and heading for a Cy Young award. So it's easier to laugh about those bombs.

"Unfortunately," he quipped, "I'm catching Barry (Bonds) right now."

Offensive terror of the week
Who was that mysterious figure flopping around in the dirt in an action-packed tour of the bases to score the winning run for the Oakland A's last Saturday?


	Hudson

It was pitcher Tim Hudson, of course.

And for those who witnessed his journey, it will take a long time to forget it.

Hudson, who was known as quite a hitter in college at Auburn, had gone in to pinch-run at first base in the 10th inning. Then a pitch skipped away from howitzer-armed Texas catcher Pudge Rodriguez. So Hudson took off for second, rumbling, bumbling and tumbling into a heap at the bag, with Alex Rodriguez tangled up on top of him -- but safe.

Asked if he'd thought about who was catching, Hudson replied: "I remembered about halfway there."

Then later, he misjudged Eric Chavez's game-winning hit, headed back to second base, and still managed to U-turn and make it home with the winning run.

But afterward, manager Art Howe told the San Francisco Chronicle's Susan Slusser: "I passed one of the umpires after the game and said, 'If I ever put him in the game as a pinch-runner again, throw me out of the game.'"

"I know one thing," Howe said. "They don't teach baserunning at Auburn."

Comeback of the week
All wins are good wins. But wins that come when you enter the ninth inning trailing by three runs -- after losing eight of your previous 11 games -- are really, really good wins.

So you'd think Twins manager Tom Kelly would have seen nothing but beauty in his team's dramatic 7-6 comeback win over the White Sox on Tuesday. But when the talk afterward turned to Doug Mientkiewicz's dink RBI single off the end of the bat that closed the gap to 6-5, Kelly was having a hard time making it seem like a rope.

"One of the most ugliest hits of the year," he said. "Maybe the decade."

Big EE of the week
The Indians did something Wednesday we've never seen before. They had two different outfielders commit an error on the same play -- on a single.

It was just a ground-ball single to left-center by Shane Spencer. But when left-fielder Russell Branyan reached down to pick it up, he dropped it. That allowed baserunner Jorge Posada to go from second base to third.

Then center-fielder Kenny Lofton showed up. He also picked up the ball and dropped it. So Posada scored, and Spencer went to second.

"There were two bees on the ball," Branyan alibied to the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Paul Hoynes. "I knocked one of them off. Then Kenny knocked the other one off. We took care of the problem."

Mystery hurler of the week
Who was that mysterious man throwing batting practice to the Tigers the other day? It was Red Wings goalie Manny Legace (pronounced like: "Legacy.")

Asked by Booth Newspapers' Danny Knobler to review Legace's work, Tigers assistant GM Steve Lubratich quipped: "The only problem was, his legacy isn't throwing BP."

Pop-up of the week
Manny Ramirez hit a 501-foot home run at Fenway Park this week. But the most amazing ball he hit was a pop-up Wednesday that went so high, it was timed by the Boston press corps as having hung in the ozone for an amazing eight seconds.

And when it finally did return to earth, Tampa Bay third baseman Aubrey Huff missed it. So Ramirez got a double out of it.

"You could hit that ball to me 100 times, and I still wouldn't catch it," Huff said afterward. "If we were playing at the Trop (in St. Petersburg), that ball would have gone through our roof."

Double cliché of the week
We once heard a football player say: "You can't put all your eggs in one big ball of wax."

And we still consider that the all-time record holder in our all-time personal mixed-cliché sweepstakes. But we're always looking for new contenders.

That brings us to last Saturday's Indians-Royals game, in which Royals pitcher Chad Durbin was warned by the umpires after hitting Ellis Burks with a pitch.

Burks later said he didn't think Durbin was throwing at him. And Royals manager Tony Muser agreed, arguing the warning. But Muser said he understood that warning.

What he meant to say was that umpires have been encouraged to crack down on this sort of thing. What he did say, however, was this:

"If they smell a rat, they've got to nip it in the bud."

To which those umpires certainly would say: "Nip your own rats, bud."

Strategy of the week
The Mets and Braves were locked in a 2-2 tie in the 10th Thursday when Andruw Jones reached third with one out. So Mets manager Bobby Valentine decided to have Armando Benitez intentionally walk Keith Lockhart and B.J. Surhoff, loading the bases for Javier Lopez.

Who promptly hit a game-winning grand slam.

"I thought Javy was our best chance to get out of it with one swing," Valentine said. "I was right."

Kings of swing of the week
Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire converged in St. Louis last weekend, marking the first time two 500-homer men had met on the same field since Aug. 1, 1976 (Frank Robinson and Hank Aaron).

That didn't turn out to mean a lot of trotting by those two over the weekend. (They each hit one homer.) But it did mean a lot of questioning -- especially of McGwire, whose hallowed 70-homer record is under siege by Bonds.

So as a horde of reporters headed for McGwire's locker before the series opener, his buddy, Jim Edmonds, surveyed the scene and asked the first question.

"Is it true," he asked Big Mac, "that you cut the brakes out in Barry's car?"

Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com. Wild Pitches appears each Friday.

More from ESPN...

Stark: Week in Review
First it was the state of ...

Jayson Stark archive

ESPN Tools

Email story

Most sent stories