This is why we love baseball.
Because the impossible becomes possible.
Because a game in Pittsburgh, won by a team 23 games under .500, televised to zero American households, can become the game of the year.
Because the mere sound of a man counting to nine on the radio can give us chills.
|  | | Pittsburgh's Brian Giles is congratulated by manager Lloyd McClendon after hitting his game-winning grand slam on July 28. |
We try to explain sometimes what makes baseball a better game than any other sport on earth, including Arena Football.
Sometimes, we can't find the right words. But from here on, all we have to do is tell the story of a game last Saturday afternoon at PNC Park -- a game that couldn't happen but did.
The Pirates trailed the Astros by six runs. With two outs in the ninth inning. And nobody on base.
What, we ask, were the odds that the Pirates would come back and win this game?
Oh, somewhere in the same neighborhood as the odds that Don Zimmer will win the street-luge competition at the X Games.
"Suppose you'd called Danny Sheridan or your favorite bookmaker at that point," wondered Astros broadcast humorist Jim Deshaies, "and you'd said, 'Hey, I want to throw a little money your way. What odds will you give me against the Pirates winning this game?' What do you think you would have gotten -- 2 billion to 1?"
Hey, at least. Because the correct answer, if logic were any factor here, is that there was NO chance of the Pirates winning this thing.
And then, of course, they did.
On a walkoff grand-slam homer by the left-handed-hitting Brian Giles off Billy Wagner -- a mere 16 pitches later.
It happened. We just don't know quite how.
Because it couldn't possibly happen. We know it couldn't. And here's why:
Because in only one other National League game in history -- that's once in approximately 180,000 baseball games -- had a team trailed by six runs with two outs and nobody on in the ninth and won. That game was played almost half a century ago (won by the Cubs over the Reds, on June 29, 1952).
Because the Pirates hadn't scored six runs in an entire game in 17 straight games -- let alone scoring that many in the next 10 minutes, without making an out.
Because Wagner hadn't blown a save in nearly three months (since May 9).
Because Wagner hadn't given up a home run to a left-handed hitter all year.
Because Brian Giles had three home runs and 11 RBI against left-handed pitchers all year.
Because the whole Pirates team hadn't hit a homer off a left-handed pitcher since July 7.
And because the Pirates franchise, even in seasons that included men named Stargell and Clemente and Kiner and Traynor, hadn't won a game it trailed by that many runs after eight innings since June 8, 1933.
So suppose we had told the Pirates all of those things. What do you think they'd have said?
"I'd have said, 'You're full of (fill in colorful noun here),'" Pirates catcher Jason Kendall told Week in Review. "I'd have said, 'No way that's possible.'"
And he'd have been right. Except it must have been possible, because it happened. And Jason Kendall knew it happened. He even had the scars to prove it. Literally.
Because, after Kevin Young had doubled and Pat Meares had homered and Adam Hyzdu had singled and Tike Redman had walked and Jack Wilson had bounced another single through the left side, it had just begun to dawn on Kendall he had a chance to be a hero here.
Only a few minutes earlier, he had come back to the dugout and tried to decide whether it would look bad for him to take off his catcher's gear. But since he was the eighth hitter in the inning and there was virtually no way for the Pirates to tie or win it without his turn in the order coming around, he unstrapped those shin guards.
Then there he was, walking toward the plate to face Wagner, who had just entered the game. And he was thinking, "Hey, I'm the tying run."
Three pitches later, Wagner fired one of those spark-trailing 99-mph smokeballs, cutting in on him, that "crushed my kneecap," Kendall reminisced, not very fondly.
But he forced himself to get up and limp to first. And that made him an eyewitness to the most amazing finish of his Pirates career.
"The funny thing was," Kendall said, "it wasn't like it all happened in slo-mo. Everything happened bam-bam-bam-bam-bam. Kevin Young -- double to left field. Pat Meares -- two-run homer. Adam Hyzdu -- pinch single between third and short. Tike Redman -- walk. Jack Wilson -- single between third and short. Billy Wagner in. Hits me with the third pitch. Then Giles up. Grand slam. It seemed like it happened in about five minutes."
From hopelessness to euphoria in 16 pitches. How tremendous was that?
And then here they all came, trotting around those bases -- Redman with the sixth run, Wilson with the seventh run, Kendall gimping home with the eighth run, thinking: "I'm sure glad Giles didn't hit a gapper." Then, finally, in stomped Giles, to make it 9-8, Pirates.
And up in the radio booth, longtime Pirates voice Lanny Frattare was giving one of the memorable calls of the year:
"Giles swings. Drive to right field. BUCCOS WIN! ... Count 'em: six ... seven ... eight ... Giles makes NINE. Bucs win, 9-8. There WASSSSSSSS no doubt about it."
Um, yes there was. Or why else would he have counted all four runs crossing the plate, one by one by one by one?
"It was so unbelievable," said Deshaies, occupant of the booth next door, "he had to count it out. It's like you won a big jackpot and you want to count the money."
Frattare said he could never remember counting the runs before in calling any home run in his 26-year career in Pittsburgh.
"I didn't even think about it," he told Week in Review. "I don't know why I did it. In fact, it didn't even jump out at me that I did do it until the next day, when they played it on the scoreboard and, as each runner scored, they put up the number. When I said, 'Six,' they flashed 'six.' When I said, 'Seven,' they flashed 'seven.' And 'eight.' And then 'nine.'"
Now, with any luck, he can probably get a guest appearance on "Sesame Street" out of it, if nothing else.
If not, we can still imagine, all over Pittsburgh, little kids hitting Wiffle Ball grand slams in their back yard and counting the runs. But one thing they won't be able to do is play back the videotape of this magic moment -- because of one minor technical difficulty.
"The damn game wasn't on TV," Kendall grumbled. "It was only up there on the Jumbotron, on one of those little booboo cameras, one of those K Mart digital handhelds. That's the only video."
Ah, but it will have to do. And we bet the Pirates could sell a copy to at least half of those 32,977 people that the box score say were there that day -- because that's how many of them were long gone by the time Giles' ball dropped into the bleachers.
And what do you think those people were thinking when that home run landed?
"Probably the same thing I'd have been thinking if I were a fan," Kendall said. "Let's beat the traffic.' Too bad. They could have said they were there -- instead of on I-279 headed north."
The good news, though, is that if they were indeed trying to beat that traffic, they got to hear Lanny Frattare do his count, to ... six ... seven ... eight ... Giles makes nine. And whether they heard that count or saw that home run live, we know one thing: They'll never forget it.
"A few days go by, and it's like a mirage," Deshaies said. "I think everybody says: 'Did that really happen?' At the time, you can't help but feel terrible for the club you work for that it happened to them. But at some point, there's something in you, just as a fan, that says, 'Wow. That was just incredible.'"
"What happened that Saturday," Frattare said, "was the essence of why so many of us love baseball. It's just a game in July. It means nothing to our club. And it still captures the kind of moment, and provides a memory to all those people, that they'll remember for a long, long time."
Why? Because it was a game that couldn't happen. But did. And only one man in the stadium had ever witnessed anything like it before -- the man who hit just the 21st walkoff slam in history, Brian Giles.
"Yeah, when we were 12," he said afterward, "our Little League team was down, 12-2. With two outs. We dropped an 11-spot and won. Then we all went to Dairy Queen to celebrate."
Deadliner of the week
Certain men are just trading-deadline kind of guys.
Billy Beane.
Brian Sabean.
And, of course, Terry Mulholland.
It's now believed to be a federal regulation that before the deadline in all odd-numbered years, the team employing Mulholland must trade him -- or be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
So on Tuesday, the Pirates dutifully dealt away Mulholland to the Dodgers just minutes before the deadline, thereby avoiding a trip to the slammer, or, if they plea-bargained, a special exhibition game in Siberia.
This now makes four times in Mulholland's career that he's been traded before the deadline -- from the Giants to the Phillies in '89, from the Phillies to the Mariners in '96, from the Cubs to the Braves in '99 and from the Pirates to the Dodgers this year.
By now, Mulholland expects it. And frankly, America demands it.
"It's kind of like a leap-year sort of thing, I guess," he told Week in Review. "Just as long as they don't rename deadline day 'Terry Mulholland Day,' and they don't have office pools where people guess what team I'll go to this time, what time of day I'm going to get traded, I'm OK with it."
What choice does he have, anyhow? That pre-deadline Terry Mulholland trade has become one of this country's great July traditions, right up there with 4th of July barbecues and the Rockies losing 12 of 14.
"This is my 4th of July barbecue," Mulholland said. "I'm usually on a ballfield somewhere on the 4th. So this is how I celebrate Independence Day, I guess."
Now we'll concede there might be some people out there who don't understand exactly why teams keep dealing for this great American. But it's simple, really.
He can start. He can relieve. He'd be happy to do either any day of the week -- hence his campaign to become baseball's first full-time utility pitcher.
He's pretty sure he could be a dangerous bat off the bench, all empirical and numerical evidence to the contrary (i.e., that .113 career average) notwithstanding. He's also left-handed. And anyone attempting to steal a base on him can only explain it by pleading temporary insanity. And finally, he's officially hilarious.
So who the heck wouldn't want to trade for him this time of year?
"Being left-handed and a utility pitcher has its benefits," Mulholland said. "You get to see a lot of the country and meet a lot of nice people."
But being the leader of men he can't help but be, Mulholland realizes not all players are as prepared for these midseason changes of area code as he is. So he has graciously agreed to pass along the Terry Mulholland Tip Sheet for How to Prepare for the Deadline When You Think You Might Be Traded.
1. Plan Early
"Usually," he said, "the preparation starts two weeks prior to the deadline. You start figuring out what stuff you need when you move and what stuff you don't."
2. Have Your Supplies Handy
"You need to call Mailboxes Etc.," he said, knowingly. "Then you get some boxes and sit those in a closet."
3. Adjust Your Speed Dial
"And make sure you have all the utility-company numbers handy," he said. "The phone company. The electric company. You're going to have to give those people a call. So you need to be ready."
4. Neatness counts
"Keep your locker clean, neat and tidy, very simple," Mulholland advised. "Don't be collecting too many souvenirs, because that entails a lot of tough decisions in trying to figure out what to keep when you change teams. You've got your magnetic schedules, your floppy hats, your stuffed pierogis, all your giveaways.
"So I would say, from opening day on, just say no to souvenirs -- even if they're going for 150 bucks on eBay. If you need that 150 bucks, you'd better fire your financial guy."
5. Study the rosters
"I like to ask the media-relations guy for some media guides," Mulholland said. "That way, you can get to know everybody's middle name, their birthdays, their wife's maiden name, that sort of thing. I'd say do some studying two or three weeks prior to the deadline, It makes the transition a lot easier.
"That way, say I was walking into the Pirates clubhouse for the first time. I'd say, 'Hey, Kevin (Spacey) Young.' You'll want to know nicknames, home towns, all that cocktail-party type stuff."
Of course, if you get traded to the Dodgers, as Mulholland did, that's not all you'll need to know.
"Yeah, if you go to the Dodgers," he said, "you also need a gift certificate to Berlitz's speed-learning course on foreign languages."
Then you gather up your bats and your gloves, your sweat sox and your one-liners, and you move on. To the next destination. To the next town where they think you're the answer to all their left-handed pitching problems.
Until that deadline day when they do their patriotic duty -- and trade you to some new Mailboxes Etc. in some new town.
Curse of the week
The Red Sox have their Bambino. The Indians have their Colavito. So obviously, you can't be truly cursed in this game if you don't have someone to blame -- for just about everything, up to and including stale hot dog rolls.
And that brings us to those long-accursed Philadelphia Phillies.
A terrifying thing happened to them last weekend:
A pitcher wearing the dreaded number, 99, took the mound for them for the first time since 1993.
His name was Turk Wendell. And little did he know he had already been infected with ...
THE CURSE OF THE MITCHARINO
That number, 99, of course, last belonged to the star-crossed Mitch Williams. And the last pitch the fabled Mitcharino threw while wearing it resulted in a fairly memorable walkoff home run in a fairly important October baseball game by some guy named Joe Carter.
So could there have been any doubt what would happen the first time a new No. 99 for this team threw a baseball 60 feet, 6 inches?
Yup. It resulted in yet another walkoff homer, this time by Robin Ventura off Wendell last Saturday.
But that's not all. The Phillies then proceeded to lose their next two games, too -- also on walkoff home runs. And that was a fate that hadn't befallen any team in either league since the Expos did it on May 10-12, 1999 -- and had happened to just one other team (the '98 Tigers) in the last two decades.
So Philadelphians, being the longtime professional finger-pointers that they are, easily could have blamed this development on the pitchers who threw these pitches. Or the GM who acquired them. Or the manager who sent them out there. Or the owners of the franchise on general principles. Or Shaquille O'Neal.
But why blame those guys when the real culprit is so obvious.
It's time to blame the Mitcharino. For everything.
How can you not? Consider the evidence:
Number 99 ruins franchise by giving up home run to lose World Series. No more number 99s wear Phillies uniform for eight years. Then new number 99 takes the mound, and walkoff homers sprout like weeds?
"I've got to admit," says Phillies broadcasting witmaster (and former Mitcharino teammate) Larry Andersen, "it's a little too coincidental."
Heck, even Wendell figured that out in about three seconds.
With the Mets, we all know, he wore No. 99 happily. Even signed a contract for three years and $9,999,999.99.
But when he arrived in the Phillies' locker room Saturday and was given his old No. 99, his first words were: "That's Mitch's number."
This, remember, was before he gave up that walkoff homer.
So Wendell decided he would prefer to switch to a luckier number.
Uh, 13?
Well, that's what he asked for. But infielder Tomas Perez was already wearing that one -- and had just finished switch-hitting home runs from each side in the same game for the first time in his career while wearing it, too. So no way he was giving it up.
And at this point, we should just rest our case. How cursed must No. 99 be when it results in two guys fighting over the right to wear No. 13? That's gotta be a first.
"You know what?" Andersen concluded. "Maybe 13 is a lucky number after all. And all this time I've been thinking it was unlucky.
"From now on," he announced, "I'm staying away from all 99s at all times. I am not going up to the 99th floor of the World Trade Center anymore. And you can quote me on that."
And that's excellent advice for us all. It's all about the Curse of the Mitcharino. Don't catch it.
Space balls of the week
Well, it's been a week now since our quest for futuristic new home-run terminology led us to put out a call for assistance from our astronaut readers out there. And what's happened?
Shockingly, not one space traveler -- not even Bill (Spaceman) Lee -- has called, written or landed a space shuttle in our driveway.
Sheez. And they call this a space program?
But we did hear from many of you who were not in orbit this week. And we appreciate that. We're going to stamp out those old, way-too-20th-century homer terms -- like "bomb" and "tater" and "dinger" -- if we have to e-mail these columns to Mars. And this week, many of you really got the idea.
So back once again, to review your submissions, is the great Jon Miller, dulcet voice of ESPN Sunday Night Baseball.
First, let's recall that we didn't just ask you to think of a bunch of space terms. Being the earthy types we are, we also asked for hip cultural home run references, such as, say, to "Survivor."
The best "Survivor" allusion was "The tribe has spoken," from Jason Kriegel of Oklahoma City. And while that would be perfect, in some ways, for some big Cleveland Indians blast, we have that dreaded political correctness to worry about.
We don't want to be picketed by any native Americans just because Jim Thome hits a home run some day. So basically, we're sorry we asked. We're voting ourselves off this island.
Miller also suggested last week that a hot, trendy rap lyric would make him sound really cool. But we regret to announce that we didn't hear from any rappers this week, not even any rapping astronauts.
"I'm down about that," Miller sighed. "Oh, well."
But it's clear you all love space way more than you love Puff Daddy. You're a very spacey audience, and we love that about you. There was so much inside space talk, we could have sworn some of you were personally related to John Glenn.
We did hear from a real astronomer -- Andy Rivkin, of Waltham, Mass. And he said, "You want to sound like NASA? You need acronyms." So he started us off with one from our personal "NASA's Greatest Acronyms" album, the epic ...
Hmmm. We had that one in Scrabble just last night, in fact. It's what occurs, according to Andy Rivkin, "when the solid rocket boosters on the Shuttle get jettisoned." And, coincidentally, that's something that also has happened to many a Mark McGwire home run.
"I like it," Miller said. "It's been launched. It's leaving the yard. It sheds its boosters and launches into orbit. Mission control, we have SRB sep. X Ray Delta. Niner. Over."
Whew. Beautiful. Now that is a home run call we'd like to hear. And not necessarily from lunar orbit.
Rivkin also submitted another classic . . .
We're pretty sure we came across that phrase in the instruction manual of the grill we tried to assemble once. But Rivkin says it actually stands for: "main-engine cutoff." Which means you're now safely in orbit.
Even Jon Miller might have a tough time pulling off a random M.E.C.O. reference. But main-engine cutoff -- that's another story.
"Yeah. We have main-engine cutoff, and that one's now coasting in orbit," Miller intoned. "Allll righhhhtttt. Now you couldn't go to 'Press to M.E.C.O.,' right away. But once you explained it a few times, I think you could. You'd have to explain it in advance. Then you'd have to hope you get a home run right after you explained it.
"That's the kind of stuff you could use on a local radio broadcast. It's a little more relaxed environment. You explain it. Then the guy hits it. You use it. And when the game's over, you play the highlights and explain the whole thing again when you play the highlight. Next thing you know, it's caught on."
So imagine that new-millennium generation watching those home run balls fly out and yelling, "Press to M.E.C.O.," the way their forefathers exclaimed, "What a bomb." Or they could use another Andy Rivkin expression, "What a planet crosser," (in honor of what happens when an asteroid nears a planet).
This, friends, is progress.
"It's like a whole new world opening up," Miller said. "New avenues for the 21st century of baseball broadcasting."
Fortunately, you amateur space fans had some good ones, too. Such as Perry Shirley, of Alameda, Calif., who proposed . . .
We're still paying off the golden orb we bought for our wife five years ago. But Miller foresaw other possibilities.
"You know when that could be used?" he pondered. "At a night game, just around sunset. If you go to Pacific Bell Park (in San Francisco), early in a night game, the sun is going down and it's still shining off the scoreboard. And in the East Bay hills across the bay, the sun is glowing. And the ships are going by. And in the houses up in Berkeley Hills, the sun is reflecting off all the windows. So it looks like golden orbs are all around you.
"At that time of day, 'golden orb' is truly apropos: 'And that golden orb is coasting into orbit, high above Pac Bell Park. Over.'"
There were other cool ones, too: "moonraker" (from John Rooney, of Fresno), and "lunar eclipse" (also from John Rooney), and "reached escape velocity" (from Kevin Tucker, of Alexandria, Va.), and "Titan 4" (from Nick Scheffel, of Folsom, Calif.), in honor of the Air Force's newest satellite-launching rocket.
But we also heard from an actual physicist -- Daniel Hornbaker, of Champaign, Ill. He proposed that a fashionable scientific term for a home run could be one of your favorite expressions and ours ...
No, this is not a condition discovered by your dentist. This, Hornbaker tells us, is what happens "when a neutron turns into a proton by emitting an electron at high velocity."
"Ooh," Miller gushed instantly. "I'm using it. It makes you sound real smart. I have to write that one down.
"You know," he went on, "I already use one physicist's expression. If a guy hits one on the sweet spot, I say he 'hit it center precision,' because that sounds cool. It's better than saying, 'He hit it on the sweet spot.' With beta decay, you'd have to explain it afterward. But basically, it sounds cool. So we don't care."
It was right then and there that we discovered something about Jon Miller we never realized before. He obviously didn't grow up thinking he was going to live his life talking about Ramon Martinez's average with men in scoring position. No. He clearly had higher aspirations.
"I wanted to be the NASA announcer during those missions," he admitted. "I wanted to be the guy who did the countdown: '10-9-8-7-6-ignition,' all that. I wanted to be the guy they talked to as they were orbiting.
"I wanted to be the guy saying: 'X Ray Delta Niner, this is Mission Control.' I just loved the sound of that guy's voice. When Stanley Kubrick made '2001 (A Space Odyssey),' I think he got that guy. He sounded just like him: 'Stand by for your earthbound transmission. ... How ya doing, boys?' I loved that guy."
So if NASA ever comes along and offers that particular position?
"I'm outta there," Miller said. "Either for that, or when Bob Sheppard retires (as the distinguished baritone at Yankees Stadium). I want to say, 'Good evening. And welcome to Yankee Stadium.'"
Well, gee. Who wouldn't? But in the meantime, he's going to have to get by with saying, "S.R.B. Sep" and "Beta Decay." Because that's where baseball broadcasting is heading in the years and decades ahead. We think we know that now.
"We got some good stuff," Miller said, proudly. "And it comes with authority, too. So I think we can put this to rest now. We've helped steer the course for the future of the home run call in baseball broadcasting. And that's good.
"So first star on the left," he said, with that sparkle in his voice. "Then on into the future."
Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com. Week in Review appears each Friday.
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