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| Friday, August 31 Updated: September 2, 3:29 PM ET It's amazing how much ire a little earring can produce By Jayson Stark ESPN.com |
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It was one of those moments that gave new meaning to the term, "Diamond Notes." It was a moment that proved, once and for all, that lobe gems are no substitute for Web Gems. It was a moment that only "Rock" Raines, Jeff Stone and the late, great Pirates manager, Jewel Ens, could properly appreciate. Or maybe (Cory) Bailey, (Ernie) Banks and (Rocky) Biddle.
Yes, for all those critics who say baseball hasn't stayed in tune with the fast-moving times we live in, we can rebut every one of those arguments with one sentence: We almost witnessed a brawl last weekend -- over an earring. If that isn't a sure sign of the evolution of baseball civilization, we don't know what is. "When two teams are going to fight over a pair of earrings, it might be time for me to get out of the game," Indians third baseman Travis Fryman told the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Paul Hoynes, after the Indians and Mariners cleared the benches last Saturday to discuss the latest jewelry trends. "That's 21st century baseball." In those other, more barbaric sports, it takes late hits, flagrant fouls and, occasionally, the pungent scent of Pat Riley's hair gel to kick off mass hostilities. Ah, but not in our kinder, gentler game. All it took to get the Mariners and Indians stoked up was for Seattle reliever Arthur Rhodes to come marching in from the bullpen when the late-afternoon sun was bouncing resplendently off his diamond earrings, which just happened to be the size of John Burkett's bowling balls. "Man, they were big," Indians bench coach Grady Little told Week in Review. "I don't want my wife to know how big. I don't want her to know they even make them that big." Unfortunately, Christian Benard wasn't in attendance that day to provide any appraisals. And the Elias Sports Bureau is still trying to determine if these were the biggest earrings since modern jewelry rules went into effect in 1982. Whatever, they were big enough for Indians shortstop Omar Vizquel to claim the reflection off those earrings was blinding him as he tried to hit. So Vizquel, who unfortunately had forgotten to wear one of those cardboard boxes used to watch solar eclipses, politely asked umpire Ed Rapuano to request that Rhodes remove the earrings. Next thing anybody knew, Rhodes was stalking around angrily, calling Vizquel a "little midget" and getting himself ejected. The benches had cleared. And an official Week in Review kind of event had broken out. (One question: If Rhodes gets suspended and appeals, would he get an "earring hearing?") So here we had the Modern-Baseball Scene of the Year -- 50 men in uniform milling around, trying their best not to let on that they realized they were part of the most ridiculous bench-emptier in professional sports history. "Nobody said anything, but it was in the back of everyone's mind," Little admitted. "Everyone out there was kind of half-smiling -- except Omar. He was acting like he wanted to get at Arthur Rhodes, but I don't think he really did. I think he was actually glad we were holding him back. "It was something, man. I know you've heard it a thousand times. But just when you thought you'd seen it all, something new comes along. Tell you what. I bet I've seen 5,000 baseball games, but I've never seen anything like that. Makes me excited about next week. I can't wait to see what's going to happen next." Boy, you've got us. A brawl over the glare from Sammy Sosa's new teeth-whitening toothpaste? A brawl over a heated mutual-fund debate? A brawl over whose cell phone was ringing in the dugout? Just about anything's possible after this. "The whole deal kind of speaks for itself," Little philosophized. "He's wearing one earring in each ear that was probably worth more than a lot of players in the big leagues made in a whole season 20 years ago. Whatever their salary was, he had more invested in each ear. "I don't know what that says about modern civilization. But in the minor leagues, where I've spent most of my career, a lot of players wear earrings there, too. Except they're little bitty ones. They might be zirconium." At any rate, you know this is big news when appropriately named Seattle Times baseball columnist Larry Stone could churn out a major piece on the history of jewelry in baseball this week. And boy, was that one long-overdue -- by approximately a week. In it, Stone reports that back in the early '60s and '70s, Rico Carty used to stuff his jewelry in his uniform pockets during games because he didn't trust clubhouse security. He also recalls Marge Schott's immortal quote that "only fruits wear earrings." And he nominates Dave Parker as "Ornament Zero," making him, essentially, the first rock sparkler on baseball's block. But Little, who managed the always-glittering Pascual Perez in the minors in the early '80s, thinks it was the oldest of the trend-setting Perez brothers who really kicked this gem wave off. When he saw Rhodes' diamonds "shining out there," Little reminisced, "it was like those necklaces Pascual used to bring in there. And they'd always make him take them off or tuck them in. He had a lot of them, too. He was one of the first to start bringing them to the mound. I always wondered whether he enjoyed wearing them, or he was just trying to distract everybody." Perez, of course, could distract everybody in a variety of ways. So he was definitely suspect on that front. But in Rhodes' case, it's time to start wondering whether these weren't just expensive earrings -- but also magic earrings. The next day, you see, the Mariners again brought him in with two men on base in the ninth inning of a game they led, 3-2. And this time, before the hitter, Kenny Lofton, could ever say a word, umpire Tim McClelland asked Rhodes to de-jewel himself. Four pitches later, Lofton stroked a game-winning two-run single off Rhodes. Of course. So next time you hear that expression, "It's all between the ears," you might want to think twice about it. But if you thought this deal was pretty wild, Little says there's no telling how these guys might act today if they weren't under the microscope 24/7. "You know, when a lot of us get out of this business, where we're watched so closely all the time, it's hard to tell what we might do," Little said. "I know my wife is scared what might happen when I get out of the game." So what might she be scared of -- that Grady Little, now in his 34th professional season, might go out and wear earrings the size of Arthur Rhodes'? "Nah," Little said. "Unless we win a couple of World Series, I don't think I'll be buying any earrings like that. I might have to go with the zirconium."
Little big leaguer of the week An exhaustive investigation by our Week in Review blockbuster-story team has led us to the household of a former big leaguer we'll call "Casey Candaele," who finally admitted, under relentless grilling: "Yeah, I was there. I was on the Apopka team." Now we can't be certain "Casey," as we'll call him, actually was the real Casey Candaele, the mirthful little 5-foot-3 (OK, 5-8) mighty mite who we tried so nobly to get onto last year's Olympic team. That Casey Candaele would be retired from pro ball and 40 years old now, slightly over the strictly enforced Little League age limitation. But this "Casey Candaele" claimed to have a birth certificate establishing his age as 12½. So even though this guy sure looked and sounded like the real Casey Candaele, we'll need to investigate further. Nevertheless, no one ever seemed to get suspicious that "Casey" was older than 12 during the LLWS -- for a couple of reasons. One is that they were too obsessed with Danny Almonte. Heck, next to him, the pint-sized "Candaele" looked like Eddie Gaedel. "That kid's about 2 feet taller than I am," "Casey" said of Almonte. "He's a strapping young guy." But there was another important reason no one cared -- uh, we mean suspected -- "Casey" was older than 12: "I never played," "Casey" said. "I did exactly what I did in the big leagues. I sat and watched. They never put me in. Actually, I don't know if you saw it, but I was on deck during the last out of that perfect game Danny Almonte pitched against us. Nobody noticed me, because it was so exciting and all. But I was out there. "I called all my friends after the game to see if they put me on, but they said no, they didn't show it. Come to think of it, that's probably why he put me on deck, because he knew there was no way I'd ever get to bat." And "Casey" was pretty darned disappointed by that, too, because he claimed to have a "book" on how to hit Almonte. "I think I faced him in Indianapolis five years ago," "Casey" said. "So I'd already studied him. Actually, we even watched film on him when I was in Houston (in the early '90s). He was 3 at the time, I think. Or 1. But he could really blow cheese (i.e., throw hard) even then." So that perfect game, "Candaele" claimed -- that was really just a patented Apopka ploy, "to give them a false sense of security. We planned on losing that game, so we could come back and beat them next time. That was the coach's idea. He's a little younger than me, by the way. Our birthdays are pretty close together. But he was in charge. So I went along with it." Now you'd have thought that regardless of height or playing time (or lack thereof in both departments), somebody would have figured out that a 40-year-old former big leaguer was not a Little Leaguer. But "Casey" said he had all his tracks covered.
Hmmm. Let's get this straight. He had a razor in his pocket. He claimed his kids were his parents and his wife was his sister. And he was allowed to sneak under the Danny Almonte radar screen? Boy, are we really supposed to believe that these Little League World Series folks could be that gullible? "Oh, no," "Casey" said. "I was just very convincing. I had to cry sometimes. And I had my son come up and reprimand me a couple of times for splashing in the pool at the hotel. So I actually pulled it off pretty easily." But now that we've broken this story, you can expect the headlines to start flying. So "Casey" said he's got his off-the-field alibi together, too. "Actually, I just started elementary school," he said. "I'm having trouble with geometry. It's tougher now. And they've got these placement tests, so I'm at fourth-grade reading level. They put me in one of those remedial reading classes, but I hope to be out of that by the end of the year. It's rough being back in school. But it was either that or a job. So I opted for elementary school." And now that he's been enriched by his LLWS experience, "Casey" thinks this could propel him on to further greatness. "I'm 12 now, so I should be starting on that Apopka team five years from now," he predicted. "I should be good enough by then. And from there, who knows?" Well, we don't know about you. But it's this sort of abuse of the true Little League spirit that's destroying the last of our innocence. "Casey" assured us, however, that that destruction was only a matter of time. "Come on, man. It's big business now," he said. "They have every game on TV now. It's huge. I've got a couple of shoe-endorsement contracts lined up for next year. And I've been talking to my agent about getting traded to a Little League team closer to California. "Of course, a year from now, I can be a Little League free agent and go to any Little League team in the country. Our union negotiated that. The guy running it is Marvin Miller 4th. He does a great job. We've even got a new cable channel now that covers us. 'Little ESPN,' they call it. It comes on right after 'Rugrats.' It's big. All the Little Leaguers know about it." Being the skeptical media types we are here at Week in Review, we wouldn't advise you to believe all of this. But then again, we're still stunned that our man, "Casey," if that's who he is, wasn't ravaged by guilt over his LLWS experience. "Hey, it's not a crime unless you get caught," he said. "Isn't that what they say? That's what I live by, anyway. If there was one thing I learned in school, the six times I had to go back to sixth grade, that was it." Hoo boy. It was almost enough to make us wish we'd never campaigned to get this guy on that Olympic team. ... But on the other hand, he sure did fill a lot of space.
Triathloners of the week
Well, those Boston Red Sox can relate. Last weekend, for the third time in 13 months, the Red Sox played a baseball game that lasted at least 18 innings. (They went 19 last August in Seattle, 18 this June 5 against the Tigers at Fenway, then 18 more last Saturday in Texas.)
Three games of 18 innings or more in 13 months, huh? If you play one of those games, it makes you marathon men. If you play three, what does that make you -- triathloners? "No," catcher Scott Hatteberg told Week in Review. "It just makes us unlucky." Spoken like a man who'd just spent nearly six hours in a crouch, in a game his team wound up losing, 8-7, at 2:41 a.m. Boston Daylight Time. How insane was this game? Here's our full report:
The totals Now that's entertainment.
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The zero-fest "I can't tell you how that happened," Hatteberg said. "We've been shut down at times. But that team (Texas) throws a couple of runs up there in their sleep."
The craziness Carl Everett got picked off first by Pudge Rodriguez after being intentionally walked in the 13th. Darren Lewis got picked off by pitcher Chris Michalak one pitch after a six-hour wait to get sent in to pinch-run in the 17th. Kim's reward for his 3 2/3 innings of shutout relief was to get optioned back to the minor leagues after the game (to make room for some pitcher named Pedro). The two leadoff men, Trot Nixon and Frank Catalanotto, went a combined 1 for 16, with nine runners stranded. Nixon and Ruben Sierra both went 0 for 7. At one point in extra innings, Rangers media-relations director John Blake felt so sorry for the press corps, he tried to order the survivors a bunch of pizzas -- but couldn't find any place open. And the winning run was driven in, naturally, by the last of the 21 players the Rangers used -- backup catcher Bill Haselman. With the bases loaded and one out in the 18th, Haselman bounced the 615th pitch of the night to shortstop -- and summoned the strength to beat out the double-play relay throw for a game-winning fielder's choice. "I know that if I had caught the whole game," Haselman said, astutely, "I wouldn't have beaten it out."
The catcher Six years ago, after the Cleveland Indians had played the last 6½-hour game in the big leagues, catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. was so wiped, he quipped the next day: "I slept in my crouch." So just imagine how it felt to catch 16 innings on a refreshing 95-degree Texas evening and get off the field at an hour when the rest of the world was watching infomercials. "The thing that was most amazing was how much water I drank," Hatteberg said. "I'd say I drank 10 bottles of water -- and never hit the bathroom. I drank bottles and bottles -- and it all came right out my pores." His fellow catcher, Pudge, was so weary, he had to leave in the 16th. So there was no shame in Hatteberg admitting he had to battle occasional fog attacks in his brain. "In a game like that," he said, "you've kinda got to slap yourself around a little to hang in there." But through it all, for all those hours, they kept plugging. And unlike the 18-inning game in Arizona this season -- in which Diamondbacks manager Bob Brenly promised to cancel infield practice for the rest of the season if his team won -- there were no outside incentives offered. "We weren't bribed at any time," Hatteberg reported. "Or threatened."
The triathlon Even though the Red Sox lost two of those three, you would think they'd at least figured out the secret of playing in them. And indeed, they have. "Yeah," Hatteberg said. "Do it quicker. Nobody gets paid extra if you go 18 innings."
20-20 visionary of the week Time for interviews with the legendary Brian Kingman -- A.K.A., "The Last 20-Game Loser of the 20th Century" -- to start appearing in a newspaper near you. It's 21 years now since Kingman lost 20 for Billy Martin's Oakland A's. And he's practically turned his one sliver of fame into a cottage industry. Latest wrinkle: the emerging web-site phenomenon, www.20gamelosers.com, featuring a special link to the bio of 10-time 20-game loser and (still) Hall of Famer, Pud Galvin. Nobody enjoyed losing 20 more than Brian Kingman, on the theory that a dubious claim to fame is better than none at all. So once again this year, he's sweating out assaults on Mount 20 by Pittsburgh's Jimmy Anderson (6-16, 5.80), San Diego's Bobby Jones (8-16, 4.74) and the versatile Albie Lopez (8-16, 4.76 for Arizona and Tampa Bay).
So this, he says, "has all the makings of a fantasy 20-game loser year." His dream, Kingman says, is to have three pitchers all reach 19 losses in September and keep pitching -- "and watch all the publicity roll in" -- and then, of course, all fall short. His nightmare, on the other hand, would be for, say, Lopez and Jones to have 19 losses apiece and then pitch against each other. "If that happened," he said, "I might have to kidnap one of them." Fortunately, though, the Diamondbacks and Padres will be through playing each other by next weekend. So that's one nightmare that's safe -- for now. Kingman rates this year's main contenders this way:
Ah, but Lopez could also complicate Kingman's life in a different way. For one thing, he could become only the second pitcher in history to lose 20 but not have it show up in either league's stats -- because he switched leagues in midseason. The only other pitcher to do that was the immortal Roscoe Miller. He got a lot less "Baseball Tonight" time for it, though, because he did it in 1902 (12 losses for the Tigers, the last eight for the Giants). "Wow," Kingman said, when we informed him of Miller's feat. "I'll be trying to acquire some of his memorabilia now." Uh, good luck. But the second Albie Lopez issue here is much stickier. Last year, you may recall, when Omar Daal reached 19 losses for the Phillies and kept pitching, Kingman began following him around the country to watch him attempt to lose 20 (or not). And let's just say the Phillies were so excited to have Kingman around, they gave the impression they'd have been more open to a personal appearance by Saddam Hussein. So now let's imagine the Diamondbacks roaring down the stretch trying to finish in first place. And then Kingman, who actually lives in Arizona, starts showing up to monitor the Albie Lopez 20 Loss Scene. Think how happy that team would be to see him. "Well, I might actually have a slight edge with them," Kingman said. "Dwayne Murphy is one of their coaches, and he was my center fielder. Of course, I don't know if that's good or bad. He might say, 'We don't want this guy around.' "But suppose they're fighting for first, and it comes down to one game. Schilling and Johnson have already pitched. And here they are, turning to Albie Lopez, and he's got 19 losses. And here I am, getting all this attention because he might lose 20. They might say, 'Boy, we don't need this bunch of crap.' " Should they say that, though, they'd be making the same mistake the Phillies made last year, Kingman said. "At least they'd have one person out there rooting as hard as he can for their guy to win," he reminded the world. "They should never lose sight of that." Just to back himself up, Kingman actually dashed off a Federal Express recently to Bob Brenly under the name, Pud Galvin. In it, he suggested A) that Schilling and Johnson were two of the great pitchers in history, B) that the rotation could be maneuvered so they started about half his club's remaining games and C) that the old Spahn-and-Sain saying could be changed to: "Johnson and Schilling and rain, God willing." Kingman then sneakily ended the letter by proposing that, oh by the way, Lopez's stuff translated better to the bullpen than the rotation. "Yeah, I sort of sneaked that in there," Kingman confessed. "It was just my way of trying to get him out of the rotation. I'm sure he probably got it and threw it in the trash." Kingman's next step, we figure, ought to be to claim that since Lopez did it in two leagues that it doesn't exactly count, or at least deserves an asterisk. But Kingman says he isn't that kind of guy. "It actually bugs me that he's doing this without anybody realizing it," Kingman said. "I was just telling my friends the other day that they're not tricking me by showing the guy's record as 3-4. I'm saying, 'Come on. What's the real record here?' " Well, there's plenty of time for figuring that out. In the meantime, another dramatic Brian Kingman September is upon us. Three 16-game losers head down the stretch, with Kingman's only true slice of fame hanging in the balance. What suspense. "My position," he said, "is, I'm rooting for Bonds to hit 71 homers. Then I can say, 'Hey, that's enough records. Leave us 20-game losers alone.' " Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com. Week in Review appears each Friday. |
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