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| Monday, May 20 Updated: May 21, 1:44 PM ET Wild Pitches: The week's wacky stuff By Jayson Stark ESPN.com |
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Injury of the week
Keisler suffered one of the most innovative baseball injuries of modern times last week, when he was bit by a pygmy rattlesnake in his back yard. What made this injury particularly, eh, venomous was that Keisler got hurt while he was already hurt.
He had shoulder surgery last October and hasn't pitched since. Now he's out at least another month. At least when David Cone was bitten by his mother's dog a few years ago, he only missed one start.
Asked about Keisler's run of bad luck, Yankees GM Brian Cashman deadpanned: "He's snakebit."
Spontaneous Kim-bustion of the week
He started his action-packed evening with a whiff-whiff-whiff eighth inning that made him the 34th pitcher in history to punch out the side on nine pitches. But in the ninth, he served up a game-tying homer to Tomas Perez -- which gave him a chance to come to bat in the 10th.
And despite a stroke so circuitous that teammate Brian Anderson once compared it to watching a helicopter, Kim stroked the second single of his career. It was enough to make his teammates slightly suspicious that he'd blown the save just so he could bat.
"You know, we have been getting on him," a chuckling Luis Gonzalez told Wild Pitches. "He keeps saying he won three batting titles in Korea. It's about time he got a hit."
Sleepyhead of the week
We would like to say that nobody on the Yankees will ever forget it. But that's not exactly true -- since one member of the Yankees never even knew it happened. Not for another 10 hours, at least.
He was the next day's starting pitcher, Ted Lilly. The Yankees sent him home in the middle of the game Friday so he could get his rest for his start the next afternoon.
They sent him home to get some sleep. So he went to sleep, as ordered (sometime around the 13th inning).
You might have thought the first thing he would have done the next morning is jump out of bed and turn on Sportscenter or log onto ESPN.com to see how that ballgame turned out. But instead ...
At 10:30 the next morning, he and teammate Randy Choate were waiting for their ride to the ballpark in front of their apartment building, when Lilly turned to Choate and asked: "By the way, who won last night?"
Just remember, the important part is that he wasn't yawning when he said it.
Giambino of the week
Let's see now, before him, there was somebody named Babe Ruth. He went slamming on Sept. 24, 1925, off White Sox pitcher Sarge Connally. No truth to the rumor Connally was immediately demoted -- to corporal.
The other guy to do it was the immortal Roger Freed, back on May 1, 1979, for the Cardinals. Freed, who was affectionately known in his day as "Mr. March" (for the only month of the year when he seemed to hit), finished his eight-year career with 22 homers, just 692 behind Ruth.
And then there was Giambi, who celebrated his poetic blast by calling off his nightly postgame trip to the workout room. "I got plenty of running in and plenty of time out on the field," Giambi told reporters as the clock ticked toward 2 a.m. "I didn't really need much more. I was like, 'You know, I can miss it tonight.'"
Right. And according to reliable sources, Ruth also decided not to go to the weight room following his slam.
Bobblemania of the week
Saturday, the Rockies beat the Braves on Larry Walker Bobblehead Day. Then Sunday, the Tigers finished sweeping the Rangers on Matt Anderson Bobblehead Day. That raised the record of teams playing on Bobblehead Day to 6-1 this year, according to the chairman of our always-gyrating Bobblehead Department, David Hallstrom.
Anderson didn't actually pitch on his Bobblehead Day. But Detroit relievers did place his bobblehead between the two bullpen mounds, then went out and threw 2 1/3 shutout innings.
Asked by Wild Pitches emissary Danny Knobler, of Booth Newspapers, if his bobblehead deserved any credit, Anderson replied, humbly: "I'd like to think so."
Should this bobblemania keep up, we have to think teams may have to seriously consider what was intended as a recent mock story in the hilarious online satire site, Earduster.com: The headline: "TWINS TO CEASE PLAYING GAMES; WILL FOCUS EXCLUSIVELY ON BOBBLEHEAD DOLL GIVEAWAYS."
Notes of the week
Last Thursday, before what would become the Brewers' final loss of a sweep by the Reds, Parry presented a full page of notes about "things you may not have known."
Among them:
You have to admit, that's way more upbeat than reporting, "The Brewers finally have more hits than strikeouts."
Reunion of the week
To commemmorate the occasion, the Astros also brought back a huge array of former players, ranging from former '60s teammates Bob Aspromonte and Jimmy Wynn to many Astros stars of the '80s whose exploits Dierker described from the broadcast booth, including Nolan Ryan and Terry Puhl. Asked by the Houston Chronicle's Richard Justice what he thought of all those former players who'd showed up, Dierker quipped: "We had enough guys here to play a game. (Pause.) We wouldn't play very well, but we'd have enough."
Managerial humor of the week "I thought someone had broken into my room," Baker told the Newark Star-Ledger's Lawrence Rocca. "All my hundreds were gone. The windows and doors were locked. I don't know what happened."
"I don't know," Brenly laughed. "How many miles are we from El Paso -- about 2,000?"
Little bopper of the week
So friends, let us introduce their only .300 hitter, Omar Vizquel -- a man who now has six home runs, second on the Indians only to Jim Thome.
"Omar's going to catch Bonds if he keeps going," said manager Charlie Manuel.
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 inning of the week
But it was even more impressive than that. In the entire inning, the Mariners managed precisely one foul ball -- by Mark McLemore, strikeout victim No. 2.
Asked about the mighty foul by the Seattle Times' Bob Finnigan, McLemore said even that was an accident. "Pedro hit my bat," McLemore said. "I really had very little to do with it."
Mountain man of the week
Berkman got a Web Gem out of it. But here was his review of his spectacular work: "I'm sure I looked like an idiot, tumbling around on that hill."
Red Wings fan of the week
Much as he enjoyed them, Santiago had an announcement after his three-hit game led the Tigers to a win over the Rangers on Saturday. "Sometime, I want to see it live," he said -- of the hockey game, of course. "I want to see the fights."
Triple threat of the week
But Mets pitcher Steve Trachsel wasn't complaining. "That was a beautiful thing," Trachsel told the Newark Star-Ledge's David Waldstein. "Triple plays are cool. If a double play is a pitcher's best friend, I don't know what a triple play is. A sexy mistress?"
Box score line of the week The line: 1/3 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, 1 fastball clocked at 90 mph. The quote: Perez told the Philadelphia Inquirer's Bob Brookover he got a call the next day from the owner of his winter-league team in Venezuela. "He told me he knew who his pitcher was going to be on opening day," Perez said. "I told him, 'No, I only do that here.'"
'Hi mom' of the week But the Beaver County Times' John Perrotto reports that we can't tell you if the win was inspired by the ejection of Astros manager Jimy Williams just moments earlier, for arguing balls and strikes with umpire Jim Wolf.
Almost immediately thereafter, Pirates reliever Mike Fetters made a wild pickoff throw to score, allowing two Astros runs to score.
"I never saw the pickoff," Williams said."That's after I went out there and wished that umpire a happy Mother's Day."
Rain delay of the week
Along the way, they weren't sure what the heck was happening -- whether the radar was broken, the phone lines to the weather bureau were out or game time had just been pushed back to 1:30 -- as in 1:30 a.m.
Asked by Booth Newspapers' Danny Knobler what they'd been doing all that time, Matt Anderson reported: "We watched 'Baseball Tonight,' and we saw that we were in a rain delay. That was our only source of information."
Piazza-ism of the week Asked by the Newark Star Ledger's Lawrence Rocca what alteration he'd like made for him at Shea Stadium, our man Mike Piazza quipped: "I'd have a pop-up snack bar with a latte machine behind home plate."
Headliners of the week
Baseball: Bats Blamed for Drop in Home Runs
Barry Bonds Threatening Fictional Hitting Records Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com. |
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