Some people may look upon these last 20 years in baseball as The Glory Years. Or The Labor War Years. Or, in Rickey Henderson's household, The Rickey Years. But here at Wild Pitches, we know them simply as ...

The Kingman Years.

Over these last 20 years, we've had four presidents, four baseball commissioners, four ESPN television networks and even one outfielder who had a home run deflect off his head.

	Lopez

But we've had no pitchers who lost 20 games in a season since our hero, Oakland's Brian Kingman, did it for Billy Martin's 1980 Oakland A's. Which has enabled Kingman to carve out one of the great lovable-loser niches of modern times.

Until now. (Possibly.)

Sunday in Phoenix, Arizona's Albie Lopez will take the mound against the Dodgers, with a chance to become not just the first 20-game loser since Kingman but the first to lose 20 while switching leagues since the legendary Roscoe Miller did it in 1902.

"Somebody asked me today if I'm worried," Kingman told Wild Pitches. "I said, 'Me? What about Roscoe Miller? He's enjoyed 99 years of distinguished anonymity. He's never been worried about this. So he doesn't even know how to act.' "

We know this is true because Miller has been relentlessly unavailable for comment -- for the last 88 years. But Kingman knows exactly how to act -- because Lopez is the third 19-game loser to head for the mound with a chance to lose 20 in the last nine years.

For the first attempt -- by Scott Erickson in 1993 -- Kingman watched from a sports bar, feeling, he said, "like I was on trivia death row," as Erickson racked up clutch, back-to-back no-decisions.

For the second quest -- by Omar Daal last year -- Kingman cashed in frequent-flier miles to jet to Philadelphia and Chicago to watch Daal deftly dodge loss No. 20.

Now this Sunday, Kingman will be on hand at Bank One Ballpark, in the trivia-death-row section, as Lopez takes on the Dodgers. He'll bring along the cousin of the voodoo doll he used to "reverse-jinx" Daal last year.

"All possible elements to prevent this occurrence will be put into action," Kingman said. "There will be, of course, at least one voodoo doll on duty. And I will be at the game to maximize the reverse-jinxing powers."

And if, alas, that doesn't work, there's always that one final safety valve he can call on -- the old asterisk trick.

Kingman lost his 20 games within the first 154 games of the season, so he passed the Roger Maris asterisk standard. And Lopez will be pitching in Game 155. That, then, is one asterisk.

"Plus, he's got this two-league, two-record asterisk," Kingman said. "So I'll still be the last single-league 20-game loser and the last American League 20-game loser."

And for some reason, we have a feeling that will be enough to keep him around for important late-season quotation opportunities for years to come.

Hit man of the week
Last Saturday night, Tony Gwynn got one of his biggest hits of the year.

No, not because it was Tony Gwynn Weekend, and 60,000 people were chanting his name, and he thumped a heroic two-run pinch single in the seventh inning to lead the Padres back from a 2-0 deficit to a 4-3 win over the Giants.

The big news was, it got Bobby Jones off the hook for his 19th loss, thereby lowering Brian Kingman's blood pressure considerably and inspiring Kingman to call for Gwynn's immediate and unanimous election to the Hall of Fame.

But Gwynn said he couldn't let that -- or any other -- pressure get to him.

"I've got to keep everything in perspective," Gwynn said. "I can't get caught up in the fact that this is the end, the fact that it's Tony Gwynn Weekend and they're showing me on the scoreboard in those ugly brown uniforms with an Afro. That doesn't matter. I've got to do what I've always done."

And fortunately for Bobby Jones -- and Brian Kingman -- that's what he did.

Donut holes of the week
So guess what these numbers represent?

12212511.

No, it's not the Rangers' team ERA. It's the Colorado Rockies' line on the scoreboard Monday at Coors Field.

What's notable about that line, of course, is that it contains no zeroes. Meaning the Rockies scored in all eight innings in which they were permitted to bat, in a 15-11 win over the Padres.

"It was just another one of those games where the batting cage was open," Rockies coach-witticist Rich Donnelly told Wild Pitches. "Like I told (Padres coach) Alan Trammell after Rickey Henderson threw his bat down in the first inning 'cause he was mad -- and the ball went off the wall for a double, I said, 'The cage is open. Bring your quarters.' About the third inning, he said, 'You weren't kidding.' "

Of course, this has happened at Coors Field before. So the only news, Donnelly said, was that "they didn't score in every inning, too."

Save of the week
Normally, you hand Trevor Hoffman a three-run lead in the ninth, you can lay out the clubhouse spread and start practicing your latest high-five techniques.

	Hoffman

But not Tuesday.

Because on Tuesday, Hoffman had to try to make it through the ninth with an 8-5 lead at Coors Field.

Naturally, the first two hitters he faced -- Larry Walker and Todd Helton -- hit home runs to make it 8-7, before Hoffman squirmed through the inning to become the first reliever in history to save 40 games in four consecutive seasons.

Which might explain why he gave this review of Coors to the San Diego Union Tribune's Tom Krasovic:

"Blow it up and get rid of the franchise," Hoffman said. "It's miserable. It's not baseball."

Oh, and by the way, he said all that before the game.

Stereo trifectas of the week
And now for something completely different -- a home run record that wasn't set at Coors Field.

Never in history had two players on the same team hit three home runs apiece in the same game. In fact, only once since 1987 had two teammates hit three homers apiece in the same month. (That was Sammy Sosa and Brant Brown, for the Cubs, in June, 1998.)

But Tuesday in Arizona, Milwaukee's Richie Sexson and Jeromy Burnitz hit three each. And the Brewers -- fresh off setting the all-time single-season strikeout record -- had made history again.

"I'm honored," Sexson said. "I'm thinking, 'Any way to get into the Hall of Fame -- except for strikeouts.' "

Non-run of the week
It isn't often you see a runner fail to score from third on a clean, line-drive single to the outfield. It's even rarer when you see that runner just hold at third.

	Ichiro

But it happened Monday to the Rangers, when Texas' Mike Young decided to wait to see if Rafael Palmeiro's single to right was going to be caught by Ichiro. Then, when it wasn't, he realized there was no way he could try to test Ichiro's superhuman right arm. So he just stayed put.

And the really amazing part of that play, Lou Piniella told the Seattle Post Intelligencer's John Hickey:

"If the kid had run," Piniella said, "he would have been out."

Comebacks of the week
All the Dodgers had to do to beat the Diamondbacks on Saturday was climb out of a 3-1 hole in the ninth inning against Randy Johnson, then overcome another two-run deficit in the 11th to win, 6-5.

Now it's not as if the Dodgers had never come back to win a game in which they trailed by two runs or more in the ninth inning and extra innings. Heck, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, they did it as recently as June 21, 1922 (against the Pirates).

Asked to sum up what it felt like to win that game twice, then lose it twice, Arizona's Mark Grace said: "We were very happy. We were very dejected. We were very happy. We were very dejected. The same goes for them. That's why we love it. That's why we hate it."

Tag team of the week
You have to feel sorry for the Kansas City Royals. They spent the first eight innings Monday flailing at the knuckleballs of our favorite Tigers flutterball king, Steve Sparks. Then, in the ninth, they had to deal with closer Matt Anderson, who throws about 112 mph.

	Anderson

	Sparks

Asked by Booth Newspapers Tigers beat man Danny Knobler to compare his velocity with Anderson's, Sparks quipped: "When he changes balls with the umpire, he throws as hard as I do."

Chairman of the week
On Sunday in Philadelphia, the Phillies won a game they trailed with two outs in the ninth inning, as 29,000 people roared.

Tuesday in the same stadium, the Phillies lost an 8-1 game to the Reds as an announced crowd of 14,863 reacted as if they'd just taken a few too many Tylenol P.M.s.

Asked by Wild Pitches to compare those two events, back-to-back games in the same ballpark, Phillies third baseman Scott Rolen described them as "fairly bi-polar."

Rolen mentioned that on Sunday, when Johnny Estrada hit his game-winning homer, reliever Eddie Oropesa was so excited, he threw a chair into the air in the bullpen.

"Tonight, the only chance of any chairs being thrown," he said, "is if Bobby Knight had been coaching on the sideline."

Piazza-ism to go of the week
The bad news for the Mets was that Mike Piazza took a foul ball off the finger Wednesday in Montreal and couldn't start the next night. The good news was, he was still healthy enough to hit a three-run pinch double.

But Piazza told the Newark Star Ledger's Lawrence Rocca that the really good news is that he now is officially registered to receive medical benefits in Canada, which has socialized medicine.

"I've got a card now," Piazza said. "I'm thinking about moving to Canada and reading the works of Karl Marx."

Gift collector of the week
With plenty of time to get the farewell tour rolling after he announced his retirement in June, Cal Ripken Jr. has been collecting more gifts lately than a Bar Mitzvah boy.

Those gifts included a year's supply of Florida stone crabs from the Devil Rays and a year's supply of Dungeness crabs from the Mariners.

"Cal loves crabs," Ripken's publicist, John Maroon, told Bloomberg's Jerry Crasnick. "His wife and kids do, too. Everybody's been trying to take care of the family's crustacean needs."

Wrongfielder of the week
It's getting to be that time of year where just about anything is liable to show up in your daily box scores. And Thursday, in the Tigers' game against the Royals, the following, all-new item appeared:

	Fick

Fick RF

That was catcher-first baseman Robert Fick, making his big-league career debut in Ichiro's favorite slice of baseball geography. But Fick told Booth Newspapers' Danny Knobler he did have some prior experience butchering the position.

"I've played there two times," Fick said Thursday. "Once for one inning in spring training, in either '98 or '99. I turned a bloop single into a triple. And once in an all-star game in high school. I turned an out into a double."

After checking out the lineup card, center fielder Jose Macias' joyous reaction was: "I guess I'm going to be playing center field, and right field, too."

Missing person of the week
We should note that Fick made it through all nine innings of that game in right field uneventfully. We also should note that they lost, 8-7.

But earlier in the week, while Fick was serving his suspension for that Tigers-Royals brawl in August, the Tigers ripped off their first four-game winning streak since June. Coincidence?

"We don't even know he's not here, really," said Bobby Higginson. "We didn't even know he was still suspended."

"If we go 5-0, send me home," Fick offered. "Get rid of me."

Fortunately, or unfortunately, for all concerned, they lost the final game of his suspension, 8-6.

Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com. Wild Pitches appears on Saturday.