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Updated: August 6, 11:13 AM ET Wild Pitches: A plea to the funnyman By Jayson Stark ESPN.com | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| P.A. announcer of the week After the developments Thursday in San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium, we have the perfect solution for making baseball the beloved American pastime it used to be. Just have Bill Murray announce the lineups at every single game. Everywhere. Oh, sure, this might require a lot of pre-taping. It might even force the brilliant comedian to attend an occasional game not played by the Chicago Cubs. But whatever it takes, we think baseball needs to explore it. Because after just a quick perusal of Murray's p.a. work for Thursday's Padres-Cubs game, it was obvious that this, friends, was what p.a. announcing was meant to be. Here are just some of Murray's raucous introductions: More proof of the power of the bobblehead. Last Saturday was Ichiro Bobblehead Day in Seattle -- an event that caused thousands of otherwise-sane people to camp out in the rain, go hours without a Starbucks and ask each other the most important question of the day:
And now more Ichiro-mania. Wednesday night in Detroit, the Mariners beat the Tigers in a game in which the most memorable play was one on which, essentially, nothing happened. That's because it was another of those famed beam-of-light Ichiro throws to the plate from medium-right field directly to catcher Tom Lampkin -- that nailed nobody, because the runner on third, Jose Macias, had no intention of tagging and running on Ichiro. So a bases-loaded, no-out opportunity for the Tigers turned into no big deal for pitcher Paul Abbott. And Abbott was, as always, eternally grateful. "He threw a strike from right field," Abbott said. "I have trouble throwing strikes from 60 feet, 6 inches." Human subplot of the week He was almost the star of the day. He was practically an entry in a very short portion of the record book. And then, thanks to forces way beyond his control, Astros third baseman Vinny Castilla became just a minor subplot in the story of one of the greatest comebacks in baseball history. Before the Pirates miraculously scored seven runs with two outs and nobody on in the ninth inning to mug the Astros last Saturday (see Week in Review for details), this was Vinny Castilla's day. Just weeks removed from Tampa Bay, where he'd hit two homers in a month and a half, Castilla hit three in one game on Saturday. And that wasn't even the big news. The big news was that he really hit four. Except the fourth homer -- a towering drive to left in the fourth inning -- had a funny thing happen to it before it landed in the first row. It was caught by left fielder Brian Giles, who later made sure a second time that Castilla wouldn't make any headlines in this game -- by hitting a game-winning, game-ending grand slam. So as a euphoric Giles stood by his locker afterward, he was asked, naturally, about that fabulous vertical leap of his. "I used to be able to dunk," he said. "It's tough, now, for a short, fat guy like myself." Trifecta of the week We've been waiting all year for the first triple play of the season. We finally got one Wednesday in Detroit. Mariners manager Lou Piniella unleashed the old no-out, two-on hit-and-run -- and Mark McLemore lined it right to second baseman Damion Easley. Oops. Put it down: 4 to 6 to 3. And none of the outs were close. "They say that double plays are a pitcher's best friend," said Seattle starter Paul Abbott. "I beg to differ. When that guy (i.e., the triple play) comes to town, you're always pretty happy to see him." Box score line of the week Mike Hampton vs. the Dodgers, last Saturday:
Hampton allowed more earned runs in 2 1/3 innings than he allowed all last August, as a Met (eight). He hadn't given up nine earned runs in any of his previous 208 career starts. Quote of the day "I just stink," Hampton said. "It's a snowball effect. Our whole team stinks, so why not me, too?" .900 hitter of the week According to the Elias Sports Bureau's Randy Robles, only one active hitter is batting .900 in his career against any active pitcher. That would be Detroit's Roger Cedeno, versus Indians pitcher Dave Burba. They'd never faced each other before this year. But let's just say Burba is heavily in favor of Cedeno signing as a free agent with some National League team. In 13 plate appearances against Burba, Cedeno is 9 for 10, with three walks, a double, a triple and a homer. And the out? Oh, a line drive. Of course. Asked by Booth Newspapers Tigers beat man Danny Knobler whether any hitters had ever gone 9 for 10 off him, Cedeno's teammate, pitcher Steve Sparks, replied: "I think (Paul) Molitor was 10 for 9 off me. And I think Marty Cordova got 10 hits against me in this game." (Nope. Only two.) Final straw of the week Just when everything in Red Sox nation looked so beautiful and upbeat -- with the heroic returns of Nomar Garciaparra, Bret Saberhagen and Carl Everett -- radio had to go screw it up. Saberhagen told the syndicated Jim Rome show the other day that manager Jimy Williams had lost the respect of his players. And among the reasons Saberhagen cited was this one: "Jimy, I think, draws straws every morning when he gets to the ballpark. And that's how he comes up with the lineup." The Boston Globe's Gordon Edes reported that Williams' Jimy-esque response to this charge went like this: "I draw straws," Williams said, "because I drink milk." Pass interference of the week The Orioles have found many innovative ways to lose baseball games lately. But it was hard to beat the new trick they came up with Thursday in a 3-2 loss to the Devil Rays. With one out in the seventh inning, Oriole baserunners on second and third, and the Orioles trailing by two (3-1), Chris Richard stroked an RBI single to center. But as Brady Anderson was pumping around third to score the tying run, coach Tom Trebelhorn threw up an emergency stop sign. So Anderson stopped, all right. By plowing right into Trebelhorn. Whereupon the two wound up in an inadvertent embrace. And ump John Hirschbeck then called Anderson out -- for the rarifed coach's interference. Devil Rays manager Hal McRae had these thoughts on this very weird play: "It was almost like a bump-and-run," McRae said. "He was trying to hold him up at the line of scrimmage. I don't know what happened, but they ended up together and we got an out." Farewell of the week He's never gotten 50 hits in a season. He's never hit three home runs in a season. So as the great superstars of baseball go, John Wehner might not make the top 50,000. But he's managed to play 11 seasons in the big leagues somehow. So who are we to quibble? Wehner is the answer to a trivia question: Who got the last hit at Three Rivers Stadium? And Friday night, in what is going to go down as the final at-bat of his career, he got an infield single in front of a sellout crowd that had no idea what it had just witnessed. (He was designated for assignment after the game.) "Just think," Wehner said afterward. "Years from now, those 38,000 people can say they saw John Wehner's last big-league game." Yeah. As the 38,000 people they're telling that to reply: "Who's John Wehner?" Five for one deal of the week The long-awaited Mora quintuplets -- offspring of Melvin and Gisel Mora -- arrived last Saturday.
No truth to the rumor that Juan Encarnacion's 477-foot home run at Yankee Stadium last week is still traveling. But his Tigers teammates are still talking about it. When the Tigers returned home this week, Damion Easley stood staring out at Comerica Park, trying to figure out where Encarnacion's home run would have landed if he'd hit it in Detroit. "It was going to hit Al Kaline's glove (actually a statue of Kaline that's way out in left-center, 470 feet from the plate). And if not," Easley told Booth Newspapers' Danny Knobler, "it was going to hit the parking garage, then go down the alley, roll into the river and across to Canada." Hall of Famer of the week Kirby Puckett and Dave Winfield will steal the show Sunday. But Bill Mazeroski is going into the Hall of Fame, too, that day. And he'll definitely be the star attraction in his hometown of Stuebenville, Ohio. Only three other men from the Stuebenville area have made it into any major sports Hall of Fame. Two of the others are Maz's contemporaries, too -- Phil Niekro and Celtics legend John Havlicek. The third is Cleveland Browns kicker-lineman Lou Groza. "It must have been something in that Ohio River water," Mazeroski told the Beaver County Times' John Perrotto. "On second thought, maybe it's not. As dirty as that water used to be when we were growing up, we should have all probably been dead years ago from eating catfish out of the river." Hail to the chief of the week Former President George Bush stopped by a Red Sox-Angels game in Fenway Park on Thursday. And as the Angels emerged from their clubhouse, they weren't sure how or whether to approach the former head of state. But manager Mike Scioscia proved he had his priorities in order. "First, I've got to pay homage to Peter Gammons," Scioscia told the Los Angeles Times' Mike DiGiovanna. "Then I'll talk to President Bush." Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com. Wild Pitches appears each week. |
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