According to the Elias Sports Bureau's Ken Hirdt, all this made Wood the first pitcher in history to record a four-strikeout inning and hit a home run in the same game, let alone the same inning.

"Well," Wood said afterward, "I'll take it -- but they were pretty bad pitches. ... I'm not too proud of that."

But he'd turned the impossible into the possible. Just one more reason we're glad our favorite sport isn't on strike.

Trifecta of the month
Speaking of the impossible . . . it's been reported that the Phillies hit into a triple play last Tuesday in Montreal. But that wouldn't be quite accurate.

What they really did was strike out into a triple play.

We're still trying to detemine if anyone else has whiffed into a triple play since the 18th century, when the rules were a little funkier on dropped third strikes. But whether it's unprecedented or not, it's still pretty much off the charts for degree of difficulty.

The Phillies get bonus points, then, for making it look easy. They had runners on first and third. Marlon Anderson struck out on a pitch that bounced. Placido Polanco tried to make it to second. And the madness began.

Polanco stopped, got in a rundown and was tagged out. Travis Lee started home from third, then tried to scramble back and also got tagged out.

So that's 2-6-3-6-5 if you're scoring. But if you're zip-coding, the closest match to 26365 belongs to a town called Haywood, West Virginia. Which has a population of 142. Which means it's about as populated as Stade Olympique was that day.

Nevertheless, there were eyewitnesses to verify this really happened. One of them was Week in Review hero Doug Glanville, who is still trying to figure out what went on himself.

When he saw the Expos throw down to second after the strikeout, he initially thought they were just working on a new way to fire the ball around the infield.

"I thought on most strikeouts with no one on base, the catcher throws it around the horn starting with the first baseman or the third baseman," the Phillies' outfield-quotesmith told Wild Pitches. "But to start it with the shortstop covering second base? I thought, 'Ingenious!'"

Oh, it was ingenious, all right. Next thing he knew, Phillies were juking and jiving, tags were being applied and the Expos were running off the field. At first, Glanville thought, they'd turned a double play, and if they applied the new Canadian exchange rates, "maybe two outs meant three."

But no, this was a real triple play -- turned in a surreal dome, in a soon-to-be-defunct baseball city, in a country not their own.

"When you play inside that dome," said Glanville, "you lose all concept of time. It could be 1 a.m. It could be time for breakfast. You have no idea. I figured it was a Twilight Zone episode unfolding underneath my nose. You could do nothing to stop it. It was like falling dominos. But I will never forget the dugout screams of, 'NO! Get back. NO! Go. NO!'"

And that about sums up this mess in any language.

Mystery pitcher of the month
Everybody knows the Diamondbacks are always looking for someone besides Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson to make some headlines on the old pitcher's mound.

They just didn't know the guy who would do it would be a 38-year-old first baseman with 2,400 career hits and no previous career pitching experience (Mark Grace).

But stuff happens. And back on Labor Day evening, that stuff was this: Dodgers 18, Diamondbacks 1, entering the ninth.

So on came Grace to A) make his pitching debut, B) do the best imitation of Mike Fetters ever witnessed outside the Fetters household and C) become the first 2400-hit man since 1900 to give up a home run. (More Grace trivia in Useless Information.)

Best quips of the night:

20-is-plenty game of the month
We've never seen a team win 20 games in a row before. (Sorry. Those '35 Cubs were blacked out in our area.) We always wondered what it would look like.

Well, now we know how it's done, thanks to those ever-creative Oakland A's.

You take a 11-0 lead, throw it into cruise control, chew some sunflower seeds, blow all 11 runs of that 11-run lead and then send Scott Hatteberg up there in the bottom of the ninth to hit a game-ending home run. Works every time.

(Well, not every time. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the A's are actually only the third team ever to blow an 11-run lead and still win. The others were the 1979 Phillies, in their infamous 23-22 win over the Cubs, and the 1900 Phillies, in a 19-17 win over the Boston Beaneaters.)

Whatever, not many of us have ever seen a game in which each team scored 11 unanswered runs. But the idea of seeing a game like that in which the team blowing the 11-run lead wins anyway -- for its 20th straight win -- sounds like something out of a bad Charlie Sheen movie.

Happened in actual life, though, last Wednesday night. Right there on the ESPN television network. Made for great highlights for people like us. Didn't make for great viewing for the local manager, Mr. Art Howe.

Afterward, Howe was asked how his digestive system had held up during that way-too-dramatic tussle.

"I don't have a digestive system anymore," Howe said -- before reportedly canceling all his upcoming dinner reservations.

Glanville-isms of the week
Since technical labor difficulties have prevented us from writing one of these Wild Pitches columns in over a month, we're real backed up on brilliant, humorous quotes by Phillies outfield-witticist Doug Glanville. So here are two of his most amusing pronouncements from August:

"It would take a few episodes of the X-Files to explain that one," Glanville told Wild Pitches. "I kept looking at the ball stuck there, waiting for something to jump out of the tarp. Then I thought, maybe that should be an out: The ball never hit the ground. No one touched it. So technically, it was still in flight.

"Maybe it went through time and ended up hitting Ben Franklin in the neck. I could see it now -- everyone gathering to sign the Declaration of Independence and Franklin loosing a wooden tooth from the impact."

And undoubtedly, Big Ben's next words would have been: "There's one truth we don't hold to be self-evident."

So howwwww lonnngggg was it? "A couple of times, I thought the sun came up," Glanville told Wild Pitches. "Then I realized, 'No, that isn't the sun. It's just another zero.'"

So howwwww lonnngggg was it? "By the end of the game," Glanville said, "we should have been wearing Turn UP the Clock uniforms -- since it was about a decade into the future by the time the game ended. I think Jimmy Rollins (age 22 when it started) announced his retirement after the game."

X-Gamer of the month
In their 2-1 loss to the Rockies last Wednesday, the Giants' only run was scored by that noted motorcycle daredevil, Jeff Kent. How did he score on a short sacrifice fly to right? By literally leaping over catcher Sandy Alomar, then lurching back to tag the plate.

Afterward, Kent told the San Jose Mercury News' Daniel Brown that this move had a name -- an "ollie with a kick."

"That's what we do on skateboards," said Kent, whose spring motorcycle trickery and other off-field hobbies hadn't been much of a source of humor around the Giants previously. "Oh, wait. We're not supposed to ride skateboards."

Well, he'd better not ride them through any car washes, anyway.

Comeback of the month
Yeah, that really was the long-lost Jaret Wright winning a game for the Indians last Wednesday.

Before he beat the Tigers, 9-3, for his first victory since June 5, 2001, Wright had a picturesque 20.25 ERA after four starts. That would have been the highest ERA in history by a pitcher who'd made that many starts in a season.

And in the three previous starts, Wright's longest outing was 2 2/3. So he was asked by the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Paul Hoynes if he felt the pressure was on.

"Well," Wright replied, ""I knew I needed to go more than one inning tonight, if that's what you're trying to ask."

Box score lines of the month

1 2/3 IP, 9 H, 10 R, 10 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, 2 HR, 1 HBP, 61 pitches to get 4 outs.

The quote: "I don't think it would have mattered who we put on the mound," said manager Bob Brenly. "They were hitting pitches in, out, up, down -- breaking balls, changeups. Everything we threw up there, they hit hard somewhere."

Factoid of the day: Oropesa was only the seventh relief pitcher in the last 10 years to give up 10 runs in a game. We can't help but present the others:

Baltimore's Josh Towers (5, 11, 10, 10, 0, 3, 3 HR, 1 WP) this May 1.
Detroit's Mel Rojas (1 2/3, 8, 11, 11, 1, 1, 3 HR, 3 HBP, 3 inherited runners who scored) on April 29, 1999.
Texas' Doug Davis in the first game of his career (2 1/3, 11, 10, 10, 0, 2, 3 HR) on Aug. 9, 1999.
San Diego's Wil Cunnane (3 2/3, 11, 10, 10, 1, 2, 2 HR) on May 16, 1997.
Minnesota's Willie Banks (1 1/3, 8, 10, 10, 4, 1, 2 HR) on Aug. 4, 1992.
And Texas' Matt Perisho (2 IP, 5 H, 10 R, 7 ER, 4 BB, 2 K, 2 HR) on May 5, 2000, in a game his team somehow WON.

5 1/3 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 10 BB, 3 K, 108 pitches, 59 balls, 49 strikes.

Quote of the day: "It was a crazy day that hopefully will never happen again," Jennings said, wishfully.

Factoid of the day: Jennings joined Phillies wild thing Scott Ruffcorn (10 walks in 4 1/3 IP on June 24, 1997) as the only non-knuckleballers and non-Randy Johnsons to walk 10 in a game since a legendary 10-walk, 10-whiff classic by Bobby Witt on Sept. 1, 1990.

8+ IP, 10 H, 10 R, 10 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 4 HR, 8 extra-base hits, 1 WP.

Quote of the day: From Byrd, after the Kansas City Star's Dick Kaegel observed that at least he'd toiled long and hard: "Long and hard with poor results, huh?"

Factoid of the day: Byrd was the first pitcher to give up 10 runs and last beyond eight innings in the seven seasons we've kept track of 10-run box-score lines.

6 2/3 IP, 9 H, 10 R, 8 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 3 HR and, over in the offensive portion of the box score, Hampton also HIT a home run.

Quote of the day: The only good news for the Rockies in this game was that they didn't have to finish it -- because a bolt of lightning knocked out all the lights in the stadium in the ninth inning. Whereupon manager Clint Hurdle started his postgame media session by announcing: "I pulled the plug on the lights."

Factoid of the day: According to Retrosheet.org's Dave Smith, Hampton is the first pitcher in the complete 29-season annals of Retrosheet to give up 10 runs and hit a home run in the same game. Four pitchers had previously allowed nine runs and hit a homer: Bob Forsch on April 22, 1980; Eric Show on Sept. 6, 1984; Denny Neagle on Sept. 29, 2001, and, yes, Mike Hampton, on April 7, 2001.

Heady play of the month
When it comes to innovative ways to turn a hit into an out, Pirates left fielder Brian Giles heads the field. Literally.

In an Aug. 6 game in Los Angeles, Giles tripped while trying to catch a Mark Grudzielanek line drive, fell and had the ball conk him in the noggin on his way down. That was the bad news.

The good news was that the Dodgers wound up with two runners on third base. So after center fielder Adam Hyzdu retrieved the ball and got it back to the infield, the Pirates still emerged from this head-spinner with an out.

Ominously, though, Giles lay in the outfield grass for a long time. So trainer Kent Biggerstaff and manager Lloyd McClendon sprinted all the way out there, only to have Giles look up and say, "I'm so embarrassed right now because it hit me on the head."

McClendon's joyous reply: "You made me run all the way out here because you didn't want to get UP?"

"Maybe," teammate Mike Williams told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Joe Rutter, "that will knock some sense into him."

Hacky-third-sacker of the month
There are many ways to catch a popup. Mets third baseman Ty Wigginton and second baseman Robbie Alomar applied none of them in an Aug. 6 game in Milwaukee.

Wigginton, Alomar and Rey Ordonez all surrounded a popup by Richie Sexson that came down on the first-base side of the mound.

When they weren't able to reach a consensus on who ought to catch it, Alomar wound up lurching toward it, getting a glove on it and deflecting it once, then twice, then back into the air. Wigginton then made a spectacular sprawling stab to catch it just before it descended to earth. Just your basic 4-5 out -- on a popup.

Asked by the Newark Star-Ledger's Lawrence Rocca if he'd always been a great hacky-sack player, Wigginton replied: "I wasn't into hacky-sack at all."

So since this clearly wasn't a baseball play, Rocca turned to Alomar and asked if any prior volleyball experience might have helped him get this bizarre assist.

"I played volleyball," Alomar said. "That wasn't volleyball."

It wasn't quite baseball, either. But whatever it was, it was an out.

Triple threat of the month
Florida's Julian Tavarez launched the HBP of the season Aug. 2 against Milwaukee. With the same pitch, he hit the batter (Sexson), the catcher (Ramon Castro) and the plate ump (Greg Gibson).

All three of them went down, writhing, too.

"I was just hoping," Florida's Andy Fox told Wild Pitches, "we had enough trainers for all of the injured people."

Bobbleheads of the month
We regret to report that as the bobblehead craze continues to explode, the power of the bobblehead appears to be waning. Our bobblehead czar, loyal reader David Hallstrom, reports that this year's bobblehead honorees are hitting just .269.

Ah, but it's still an honor. The bobblehead quip of the month comes from Arizona's Steve Finley, to the East Valley Tribune's Ed Price, on how excited he was to homer on his bobblehead day (Aug. 10): "It beats going 0-for-5."

Runner-up, from Brian Giles, to the Beaver County Times' John Perrotto, on the resemblance (or lack thereof) of his bobblehead to his actual good looks: "I think it's a Bruce Tanner doll." (Since Tanner, the Pirates' bullpen coach, outweighs Giles by an estimated 50 pounds, we're guessing he didn't mean that as a compliment.)

Humorists of the month