Cheap Seats
He’s no Francis Scott Key
With playoff games on television during prime time and millions of dollars in prize money available in the postseason, every baseball player dreams of doing well in October.
Cleveland Indians reliever Mike Jackson said he had a bigger incentive for pitching well in the team’s 5-4 victory Thursday night in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series: He didn’t want to listen to fireworks at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
Jackson was chief among some Cleveland players who complained of hearing loss after the Orioles released 14 rounds of loud fireworks when they won Game 1. The Indians asked the Orioles stop that celebration, but Baltimore said it wouldn’t.
“It was a little quiet around here tonight,” Jackson said. “I’m just glad we could get out of here with a split and our ears intact.”
A Ruth-less blast
On the final weekend of baseball’s regular season, Mark McGwire hit his 58th homer. Ken Griffey hit his 56th. But the biggest homer of the weekend was swatted by the Sultan of Not, plucky Braves utility man Rafael Belliard.
The 388-foot homer Sept. 26 off the Mets’ Brian Bohanon was Belliard’s first home run since May 5, 1987, his first in 1,869 at-bats, and his first since the Reagan administration.
“With all due respect to McGwire and Griffey,” said Rich Donnelly, the Marlins coach who was once a coach with Belliard in Pittsburgh, “people were watching the wrong home-run race.”
In between Belliard’s home runs, everyone else hit 40,653 home runs. McGwire hit 379 by himself. And Griffey, who was 15 when Belliard hit his first homer, graduated high school, played in the minors, and hit 294 homers.
Belliard had been working on a cool home-run trot but wound up racing around the bases. “I forget everything,” he said. “I was so excited.”
Kind of reminds you of waiting for the Mariners bullpen to pick up a save.
Gov. Locke should get him on the phone
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, wearing a Detroit Red Wings jersey, took a turn on the Zamboni during the first intermission of the Red Wings’ home opener celebrating their Stanley Cup championship.
The Zamboni ride was Ridge’s payoff for losing a bet with Michigan Gov. John Engler on last spring’s final between the Red Wings and the Flyers.
Will Ridge be riding a combine after Washington State defeats Penn State in the Rose Bowl?
Not in L.A.
Recent headline in the Denver Post: “Trojans’ Aaron Day gallops for 390 yards”. Unfortunately for fans of Southern Cal, that Trojan plays for Fountain-Fort Carson High in Colorado. USC’s net rushing yardage after four games was 30 yards fewer than Day’s one-game effort.
The last words …
Sometimes you just have to stand out of the way when Charles Barkley gets going: “One hundred, 21 million dollars, that’s a lot of damn money, isn’t it? What a great country. Imagine if he could play.”
- Barkley on 21-year-old Kevin Garnett’s new $121 million deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Asked what he was making when he was 21, Barkley said: “I had a four-year deal for $2 million. And that was when I was in college.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo