Au revoir of the week
A baseball friend of ours who needs to remain anonymous noticed something ironic recently about the new online voting procedures for the All-Star teams.

You can vote for this team in English. You can vote for it in Spanish. You can even vote for it in Japanese. But guess which language you can't vote for your favorite All-Stars in?

That would be French. Which happens to be the principal language in a city in which Major League Baseball currently owns a team.

Ah, pourquoi pas?

Mystery slugger of the week
On May 23, the same day Shawn Green hit four home runs in one game in Milwaukee, an even more improbable home-run feat was taking place elsewhere in the great Midwest.

That 150-pound switch-hitting mighty mite, Florida's Luis Castillo, did something he'd never done in his life -- not in the major leagues, not in the minor leagues, not in the back yard, not in tee ball.

Luis Castillo hit a home run left-handed.

It was merely the 1,772nd left-handed at-bat of his career at the time. And just to give you some perspective, Barry Bonds has hit 205 home runs in his last 1,772 left-handed at-bats.

Then again, Bonds' thigh is bigger than Castillo's whole self. And Bonds has been hitting left-handed all his life, whereas Castillo didn't start switch-hitting until the minor leagues.

But Castillo hadn't hit a home run from any side of the plate in 308 at-bats, since last August 8. So shock and amazement reigned.

In fact, reports the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel's Mike Berardino, so much shock and amazement reigned that the runner on base ahead of him, pitcher Julian Tavarez, just assumed Castillo had hit a ground-rule double. So he stopped at third.

Whereupon Castillo rounded second, found Tavarez camped out at third and had to give him instructions on what to do next.

"What are you doing?" Castillo bellowed, according to reliable translators. "Keep going."

Following those instructions, Tavarez resumed his journey and made it to home plate, as did a jubilant Castillo. But that doesn't mean the shock and amazement ended there.

More than a week later, Castillo's teammates are just as shocked and just as amazed.

Asked by Wild Pitches to describe how improbable Castillo's teammates thought this feat was, Marlins utility humorist Andy Fox replied: "I thought we'd figure out the cure for the common cold and eliminate taxes before he hit one left-handed."

Injury of the week
We've always said Orioles outfielder Marty Cordova was a colorful player. But a couple of weeks ago, during the Orioles' trip to Oakland and Seattle, he got a little too colorful.

He had to miss their May 23 game in Oakland -- after burning his face at a tanning salon.

The more we think about this, the more we think it has "conspiracy" written all over it: Visiting ballplayer shows up at tanning salon. Tanning-salon attendant figures out way to keep him out of the lineup. A's win. Hello, Vegas.

"It's possible," our new pal, "Sam," from the Baltimore tanning emporium, Sun Your Buns, told Wild Pitches. "I wouldn't doubt it. They might have said, 'Hey, we have an Oriole here. We'll do it for free if you sign an autograph,' or something. It could happen."

Oh, it would never happen at Sun Your Buns, of course. That's a reputable tanning salon, family owned and operated for 14 years. With proper lotions and proper supervision, there's no reason for anybody to get burned at a tanning salon, Sam said.

In fact, we have reason to believe that several Orioles have frequented Sun Your Buns over the years. So even though a tan doesn't improve your batting average (the Orioles of recent years have been living proof), "if you've got a good look and you're nice and tan," Sam said, "you might make more money. Maybe you'll get a couple of commercial offers."

Good point. But that's for guys in Baltimore. The big question is: What's a guy in the middle of a trip to California doing going to a tanning salon when there's a big orange ball in the sky out there almost every day?

"If it were me, I'd just go to the pool," Sam said. "But if you go to California, especially a place like Venice Beach, every block has a tanning salon. So go figure."

Drug rust of the week
There wasn't much that was entertaining about the gigantic Steroid Craze that swept baseball last week. But while it didn't lead to steroid testing, it did test the creativity of all the players who had to think of decent answers to all the steroid questions being hurled at them by people like us.

Our three most amusing favorites:

We won't even get into the mathematical disaster Rickey created with that answer. But asked by the Hartford Courant's David Heuschkel if he was ever even tempted to use steroids, Henderson flexed his biceps and said: "Look at me, man. Would I need to be tempted? This is all a gift from God."

Tirade of the week
In many ways, we admire Lou Piniella for turning himself into a kinder, gentler Lou. But we have to admit we sometimes miss the Old Lou, the Lou who once heaved a base so far that a Cincinnati radio station was inspired to hold a downtown base-hurling contest the next day.

So it sure was fun to see the Old Lou erupt in Tampa last Tuesday. First came a few words of polite disagreement with the ball-strike calls of his old nemesis, umpire John Shulock. Then came an emphatic ejection from his old nemesis, John Shulock.

Then came the highlight of the day -- Piniella covering home plate with dirt and Shulock refusing to clean it off. Play finally resumed when catcher Dan Wilson actually asked to borrow Shulock's broom to sweep it off. (We've always thought that Dan Wilson was one of the tidiest guys in baseball. Now we know for sure.)

"Shulock's lucky I wasn't catching," Piniella said afterward. "We'd have played with a dirty plate."

Then came a little pregnant pause as Piniella mulled over whether it was OK to take one last swipe at Shulock's strike zone. Unanimous decision: Aw, what the heck.

"It probably," Piniella quipped, of that dirt-covered plate, "would have helped him."

And the great epilog to this whole incident is that it happened in front of Lou's mother and father, who were sitting right there in the front row. And how did they react? The Seattle Times' Bob Finnigan reports that Piniella's mother clapped, and as Piniella stomped back to the dugout, his father did the only logical thing -- took a picture of him.

Out of body experience of the week
We're pretty sure you've been wondering, after watching Shawn Green lately, what it feels like to hit four home runs in a game, six home runs in a series and 10 home runs in a week.

Well, here's Green to explain that feeling as eloquently as it can possibly be explained.

"It feels like it's not me doing this," Green said. "It's like it's someone else, and I'm along for the ride."

Whereupon he requested that all 10 homers be added to the career totals of Mark McGwire.

OK, no he didn't. Just wanted to see if you were still paying attention.

Notations of the week
A couple of weeks ago, Wild Pitches reported that it had gotten so tough to keep coming up with the usual chipper press notes in downtrodden Brewers country that Brewers media-relations assistant Jason Parry decided it was time to get creative.

So here are still more of his official press notes on Things You Probably Never Knew About the Brewers (and had no intention of ever asking):

We regard this as clear proof that watching the Brewers repeatedly does not cause brain damage, contrary to opinions being expressed by other espn.com columnists.

Two-pitch pitcher of the week
You think it's tough striking out a major-league hitter on three pitches? You ought to try to match the innovative achievement of Yankees reliever Steve Karsay last Monday:

He struck out White Sox bomber Magglio Ordonez on two pitches.

How? you ask. Well, Karsay had just gotten up to warm up when Ordonez stepped to the plate to face Sterling Hitchcock. So he wasn't quite ready to be brought in -- until the count was 1 and 1. Which was when Joe Torre waved him in.

Two strikes later, Ordonez was out of there, and Karsay had himself an official whiff -- on two pitches.

Gotta love those goofy rules of baseball which can make the impossible possible with one stroke of the printing press. So the New York Times' Tyler Kepner asked Karsay if he knew at the time that the rules had just allowed him to pull this feat off.

"I've done that a couple of times in my career," Karsay said. "So I know anything good goes to me -- and anything bad goes to the guy who started it."

Well, kind of. But that's not quite the way it works. For instance, if Karsay had given up a three-run homer, it would have been tough chalking that up to Sterling Hitchcock. Nevertheless, this rule does produce some goofy developments. Here's the goofiest we've ever heard of:

Current White Sox broadcaster Ed Farmer once got ejected after an umpire called two straight balls on pitches he thought were strikes. So a new pitcher entered, the batter was pinch-hit for with a 2-and-0 count -- and Farmer was eventually credited with walking the pinch-hitter (whom he'd never faced) -- after getting tossed. True story.

Strategist of the week
File this one under: It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The Giants were trailing the Diamondbacks by one run in the ninth inning Thursday. On a groundball to third base by David Bell, the runner on second -- the speedy Tom Goodwin -- tried to hustle his way to third after third baseman Craig Counsell had fired the ball to first.

Had he stayed, he would have been on second with one out and Barry Bonds at the plate. That would have been good.

Instead, he wound up getting thrown out at third by Mark Grace. That's bad. So no wonder Goodwin lay there in the dirt for about 45 seconds, wondering if it was safe to get up and head back to the bench.

Goodwin's recollection of the whole experience sounded like one of those nightmares you have as a kid in which you're running after the school bus but you can't catch it.

"When I was running," he told the Contra Costa Times' Joe Roderick, "I was thinking, 'I'm not really getting too close to this base.' It's really not a good feeling."

But it sure beat the feeling of lying there, knowing you'd just gotten thrown out with Bonds on deck. Asked about that feeling, Goodwin replied: "You just kind of want to have somebody come in and put dirt on you when you're laying there."

Team-mate of the week
If transcontinental Mariners rookie Chris Snelling is wondering, the all-time record for most home runs hit by a guy born in Australia is 105, by Dave Nilsson.

And Snelling is a mere 104 behind him now, too, following the first homer of his big-league career last Wednesday in Tampa Bay.

"You have to say, 'It was lovely, mate,'" Mark McLemore told the Seattle Times' Bob Finnigan. "We'll all be on the phone to Mum in Australia on the plane to Baltimore. We want to tell her what a good kid she has."

Speaking of Mum, Snelling had already promised her the ball from his first big-league hit. He collected that the night before.

"Someone said the home-run ball was in my shoe, so Mumsy will get that, too," Snelling said, meaning the ball, not the shoe. "Dad might want it, of course. I guess they'll just have to fight over it."

Loser gets a pet wallabee.

Rain men of the week
Somewhere over the rainbow, you just might find the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Beaver County Times' John Perrott reports that already this season, they've had 10 rain delays at home -- covering 12 hours, 59 minutes.

So pitcher Kip Wells' agents, Alan and Randy Hendricks, sent him a photo of some little kids in rain slickers. One of them had No. 32 (Wells' number) scrawled on it, with the inscription: "These are the Pirates' new uniforms."

"I always say, 'Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes you get rained out,'" Wells said. "I guess this year it probably isn't right to just sometimes you get rained out. It seems like we always get rained on."

Kamikaze of the week
It's never recommended procedure to have the pitcher catch a pop-up. But tell it to our favorite crazed Twins closer, Eddie Guardado.

While pitching the ninth inning of what was then a tie game with the Angels on Thursday, Guardado watched a foul pop-up by Tim Salmon clank off one of those pesky Metrodome speakers. When he realized the ball was going to land in front of the dugout instead of in the stands, Guardado took off.

He then launched himself into a belly-first dive through mid-air, caught it and ate enough AstroTurf upon landing to qualify as a one-man artificial surface.

Normal closers don't do that sort of thing. But Guardado's teammates figured out long ago that he just can't help himself.

"People start screaming, 'Ed-die, Ed-die, Ed-die," said manager Ron Gardenhire, "and he's going to have to do something more spectacular than get a save."

Guardado's account of his heroics:

"As soon as it hit the speaker, I hauled (butt) after it," he told the St. Paul Pioneer Press' Brian Murphy. "I did the Torii Hunter dive -- both arms out flat, like Superman."

Box score lines of the week

"There have been games when the ball would get hit hard, but someone would catch it," Beckett said. "Not tonight."

"We'd talked about what he would do if he ever faced me," Person said. "He said I wouldn't be able to hit his fastball, and I was like, 'OK.' But that was right in my zone. I'm a pull hitter."

Now he tells him.

KKKKKKK mart of the week
Rough weekend for Reds catcher Jason LaRue. He struck out in seven straight at-bats over two days (with a hi by pitch mixed in) -- two short of the all-time record for a non-pitcher.

After watching that outbreak of swinging and missing, manager Bob Boone said he might even have to reevaluate his catching platoon with LaRue and Corky Miller.

"That'll be a factor," Boone told the Cincinnati Enquirer's John Erardi. "I'd like him to touch the ball every once in a while."

Managerial humor of the week
Speaking of quips by managers, here are the two best of the week:

"That's tears on it," he said, "making the ink run."