Posted on 09/09/2001 3:57:23 PM PDT by L.N. Smithee
First on the web?
Do I win a prize?
GO BONDS!
Thanks...but I'm a guy.
I am certain that it wasn't even fun the way the Yanks whipped the BoSox this year, the way they self-destructed. Firing the manager down the stretch -- what a stroke of genius.
Oh, that really hurts.
Heh heh heh...
Hearing the Rockies fan chanting his name, and demanding a curtain call ... classy fans. This is big stuff. And a phbbbt to the SoreLoserman folks who compare a guy's personality to his skill. To that, I say: Hey - he hasn't climbed into the stands to take a swing at a fan, or been arrested with hookers, or been arrested for drugs, or arrested ... well, you get the idea. The man is confident, and guarded with whom he associates, and who can blame him. Unfortunately, the media (duh) are the folks who report on him, and because he's nicer to kids than he is fat-headed reporters like Rick Reilly... that's all I've got to say.
This was an incredible game ... whew!
Softballs? Not a chance. The Rockies' pitching staff is short on quality arms in the first place (the fact that they put Justin Speier on the mound regularly is proof of that), and in the second place, they have to play in a ballpark in thin air that sucks fly balls over the fences.
No pitcher wants to be on the mound when historic hits are made. Ask Steve Trachsel (McGwire's 62nd homer), Al Downing (Hank Aaron's 715th), Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams (Joe Carter's Series winning homer in Toronto), or the king of them all, Ralph Branca (Bobby Thomson's "Shot heard 'round the world.")
However, you can't ask the late Eric Show, who sat on the pitcher's mound and pouted like a child after Pete Rose's 4121st hit, or California Angels reliever Donnie Moore. Less than a year after allowing two homers with two out in the ninth in the 1986 American League Championship Series, Moore committed suicide.
Had Moore retired Red Sox slugger (and current Cubs manager) Don Baylor with a third and series-ending strike, the Angels would have went to the World Series to play the Mets. Baylor hit a game-tying homer, and Boston's Dave Henderson hit a two-run blast later in the inning to turn a 5-2 lead into a 7-5 deficit.
As a Giants fan, I know that pitchers save their best stuff for when Bonds comes to the plate. The curve balls break more, the fastballs are the fastest clocked of the game, and if those pitches are out of the strike zone, Bonds will be walked before the pitcher will come over the plate with something.
No major league hurler worth his cup would grant a gift to Bonds.
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