This is what makes baseball great.

Until a month ago, we'd watched about a trillion baseball games in our life and never seen a runner score from second base on a routine throw back to the pitcher from his trusty catcher. Now we've seen it twice -- in 22 days. Perfect.

On Aug. 12, fleet-footed Rockies catcher Sal Fasano thundered home when Reds catcher Jason LaRue threw a ball into center field instead of to his pitcher. Then, on Monday in Philadelphia, the Mets scored the winning run in the ninth inning on a play that was, if anything, even more bizarre.

	Zeile

The Mets had just come from two runs down to tie the game off Jose Mesa. Todd Zeile was on second. New Phillies reliever Jose Santiago thought he had just struck out Robin Ventura with a two-strike pitch. But when plate ump Tony Randazzo didn't second the motion, Santiago angrily swiped at catcher Todd Pratt's throw back to the mound -- and missed it.

So Zeile took off for third. Shortstop Jimmy Rollins scrambled after the ball and heaved it past third base. And Zeile scored maybe the most improbable winning run of the year.

Asked what he would tell his grandchildren some day about how he'd used his blazing speed to score from second on a mere throw back to the mound Zeile smiled.

"Remember the old AT&T commercial where the kids were describing their Little League home runs to their grandpa," Zeile told Wild Pitches. "And then they'd show what they really did, and it sounded a lot different? Well, I've always thought that at least in Little League, they don't have the curse of having anything videotaped and recorded for posterity."

In other words, Zeile said, "in this situation, there's no need to fib. Too many cameras around."

Which doesn't mean this wasn't the most bizarre game-winning rally of September.

"It was a full moon, right?" said teammate Mike Piazza. "I can always tell. Not that I'm Bill Lee or anything, but I can always tell."

Quinella of the week
In the Curt Schilling household on Wednesday, the really big news wasn't that Schilling won his 20th game -- for the first time in his career.

No way. The biiiiiggggg news was that, in the same game, he also got three hits -- for the first time in his career.

Last man to get that many hits in his 20th win, according to the Elias Sports Bureau's Ken Hirdt: Danny Jackson, who got four hits in his 20th win, back in 1988. They're the only two pitchers who have done it in the last 20 years.

"To do both those things on the same night," Schilling told Wild Pitches, "was about as common as Halley's Comet -- especially for me."

So if he'd been the news guy writing the story that night, we asked, what would he have made his lead story -- the 20th win or the three hits? Well, would you believe, none of the above.

"I thought the pop-up slide into third was something to behold," Schilling said. "To get this body moving at that speed -- and actually have it come to a stop without breaking anything -- was probably the most amazing thing that happened that night."

Walkoff of the week
It was looking like the worst loss by the Minnesota Twins in the entire second half. And that's saying something.

	Hocking

It was last Sunday in the Metrodome. The Twins had taken a 4-0 lead into the ninth inning against the Angels -- and then blown all of it. But up stepped one of our favorite people, utility miracle maker Denny Hocking.

He swatted the first game-winning, game-ending, walk-off-the-field homer by any pinch-hitter all season. And the Twins weren't feeling so lousy after all.

There were two things Hocking will always remember about this mighty blast. The first was that he hit this ball out to center field.

"Center field?" he told the St. Paul Pioneer Press' Gordon Wittenmyer. "I can't hit a golf ball out to center field."

But the other thing he'll take a long time to forget after this home run is his nose -- because, in the mad celebration at home plate when he arrived, his teammates broke it. Or, to be technical, they rebroke it where he'd broken it himself a month earlier in Oakland.

His fellow revelers claimed, however, it was his own fault. They were just trying to pound his head, as dictated by normal home run protocol, when Hocking tried to take his helmet off and it got whacked into his nose.

"He knew he was going to take a beating," said winning pitcher Eddie Guardado, "and he took it like a man."

Oh, he took it like a man, all right. But his nose still points toward South Dakota.

"Maybe I can do something like this again down the road and get mobbed," Hocking said, "and they can push it back the other way."

Mystery pitcher of the week
Sunday in Chicago, three professional pitchers -- Dave Burba, Tim Drew and Scott Radinsky -- got to pitch for the Indians against the White Sox. None of them gave up fewer than six runs.

Then, in the eighth inning, with his team losing, 19-10, into this mess strolled catcher Tim Laker. Naturally, he then gave up no runs, allowing just an infield single.

Is this a great sport, or what?

Laker said he hadn't pitched since high school. So he was in the middle of warming up in the bullpen when he asked reliever Jake Westbrook how to hold a breaking ball.

"I've messed around with a breaking ball before," Laker said. "But it never broke."

Tell it to Jose Valentin, who struck out on one.

Meanwhile, Laker also had only a catcher's mitt with him, so he borrowed a pitcher's glove from closer Bob Wickman.

"Wickman's been pitching good," Laker said. "So I figured his glove had the best karma."

Must have. He hit 88 mph on the radar gun. So Laker has his 0.00 ERA. Now all he needs is a videotape to prove he really did this.

"My wife, Ginger, was watching the game at home in California," Laker told the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Paul Hoynes. "But when the score got to be what it was, she and her girlfriend went to the mall."

This makes five straight position players this year who have come in and held real hitters to no runs. In those same games, the real pitchers on their teams allowed 58 runs.

Condiment fan of the week
Derek Bell, owner of the longest-running hamstring pull in Pirates history, returned to the big leagues from his rehab assignment in Nashville this week -- but still wasn't activated. (He's been out since July 4.)

	Bell

"My swing is good," Bell told the Beaver County Times' John Perrotto. "But it hasn't caught up to my leg. I'm going to have to go over to Heinz Field (where the Steelers play) and put some ketchup on my leg -- so I can catch up."

Asked if he visited the Grand Ole Opry while he was in Nashville, Bell looked at Perrotto as if he'd just been asked if he'd orbited the earth a few times in the space shuttle.

"Country music doesn't kick my game, dawg," Bell said, to no actual dawgs in particular.

Box score line of the week
Phillies rookie David Coggin, Wednesday vs. the Mets:

0 IP, 3 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 3 BB, 0 K and the tag line no one ever wants to read: "Coggin pitched to 6 batters in the first."

Stats of the day
Coggin was the first Phillies pitcher to get no outs in a start without being drilled by a line drive since Tommy Greene, on Oct. 1, 1999.

He was the first pitcher on any team to get yanked by his manager without getting an out, without being injured and/or without getting ejected, since Ramon Martinez on Sept. 29, 2000.

And ironically, Coggin was only the second NL pitcher to get no outs and get yanked under those criteria since the winning pitcher in this game, Al Leiter, did it in Game 6 of the 1999 NLCS in Atlanta.

Quote of the day
Coggin, on what it felt like to walk off the mound: "Probably the worst feeling I've ever had in my life -- not just in a game. It was torture."

Mathematician of the week
When the A's erupted for a six-run sixth inning Wednesday against the Orioles, it took them eight batters to make an out. It was made by Olmedo Saenz, who struck out -- but was the only guy in the stadium who didn't seem to know he'd struck out.

Saenz had assumed the first pitch he'd seen was a ball. So he was still standing at the plate, waiting to hit, when he was informed his at-bat was officially over, after three strikes.

When he got back to the dugout, manager Art Howe told him, sympathetically: "You only get three in this league."

Tiger-arama of the week
As the Detroit Tigers plunge slowly into the AL Central abyss, at least their quotes are still pretty snappy.