Two stood out so far. One was recent, on May 2. First the background: striking out is pretty bad in baseball, especially with men on base or in a game-deciding situation. But probably the worst thing a batter can do is hit into a double play. That's a real downer. You make not one out but two, and you erase somebody who might have scored a run. It's a rally killer. Okay, so guess who hit into more double plays than anyone? Cal Ripkin, Jr. The next five are Hank Aaron, Carl Yastrzemski, Dave Winfield, Eddie Murray and Jim Rice. What else do they have in common? They're all in the Hall of Fame, largely for their hitting. Pretty interesting, and you can choose your moral.
The other, from March, really fascinated me. In the entire history of baseball, there was one hitter who hit two grand slam homers in the same inning of the same game. And he hit them off the same pitcher.
What especially fascinates me is that this didn't happen in the 1890s but in 1999. I know I'm not the fan I used to be but how did that get by me? The hitter was Fernando Tatis of the St. Louis Cardinals. The pitcher was Chan Ho Park of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Tatis was the fourth batter in the 3rd inning, with all three preceding batters on base. He hit a fast ball 450 feet. By the time he came to bat again--in that same inning-- the bases were loaded again. They'd been loaded for Mark McGuire,who had set the single season home run record of 70 homers the year before. But he flied out, so Tatis came up with one out and the bases still loaded. On a 3-2 count Tatis hit a curve or (he said) a slider that made it into the seats.
This required such an improbable set of circumstances that it only happened once. Yet I can't find a narrative of that inning, beyond what I've just strung together. Tatis wasn't a home run hitter--just 5' 10.'' Still, he was batting cleanup, behind McGuire. I'm still intrigued.
This was also so recent that until this year both men were still in the majors. Tatis (who wore 23 for the Cardinals, Michael Jordan and Barack Obama's basketball number) played for several teams, often in a utility role, including some time in the minor leagues, and for awhile he was even out of baseball. Today he's back with the New York Mets. He hit another grand slam ten years later almost to the day of his two-slam inning. The jersey he wore on that day in 1999 sold for over $10,000.
You might think that giving up 8 runs to the same guy in one inning would destroy a pitcher, but Chan Ho Park's career was just beginning. He even pitched in the 2001 All-Star game (although he was the losing pitcher.) His career also took him to a number of teams. After the Dodgers he played for the Texas Rangers, Mets, Houston Astros, the Dodgers again, the Phillies, the Yankees in 2010, finishing the season and his major league career with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He plays now in South Korea, which is where he's from. While with the Pirates, he became the winningest Asian pitcher in U.S. major league history. But in addition to giving up those two grand slams in one inning, he also gave up two more historic homers in one game--Barry Bond's 71st and 72nd, that broke McGuire's single season record.
Maybe baseball lends itself to intriguing stories. Otherwise I'm getting detached--in more ways than one--from media sports. Right now the Lakers are in the process of dropping themselves out of the NBA playoffs in the second round. Update: they did, in very ugly fashion. Some teams can look good losing but not the Lakers. They're losing to a lesser team. Only today did I by chance see something that seemed to explain it. It seems (if it's true) that Pau Gasol (who is playing uncharacteristically badly) is upset over being dumped by his girlfriend, a situation in which Kobe Bryant's wife allegedly had a hand, so things are tense between Kobe and Gasol. This comports with Gasol's mystifyingly bad play, the complaint by another player that the team isn't "communicating" on court, and Bryant's dismissal of that complaint. (Gasol and Bryant were asked about the rumor and denied it.)
So it's very unlikely Phil Jackson gets his threepeat to retire on, and the franchise will boot millions of dollars, possibly over the hurt feelings of a couple of multi-millionaire athletes. As a contending team, the Lakers are toast for years to come. It's all too believable, maybe even all too human, but not exactly motivation to get invested in the games. What's worse is it paves the way for the loathsome Miami Heat to win the championship. Only the new Chicago Bulls seem remotely capable of standing in their way.
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