Cheap Seats

Thank you sir, may I have another

A year ago, Doug Jones was the toast of Milwaukee, after converting 36 of 38 save opportunities. This season, after blowing eight of 20 chances, he’s no longer the closer, and after giving up his 11th home run in 46 innings, Jones is hearing it from the home cheeseheads.

“That’s their right. They don’t pay money to see me give up home runs,” said Jones.

“I took some awful heat in Baltimore once when I tipped my hat after I got booed. I was just graciously accepting what they gave me.”

Godzilla of ballparks

Mark McGwire said he wasn’t sure he wants to take batting practice anymore because it’s getting “totally out of hand.” And you know what? There are probably a few stadium construction engineers who would appreciate it if he means that.

Millions of dollars building these great ballparks. Then the St. Louis Cardinals’ human wrecking ball sends batting-practice home runs flying in all directions, and destroys them. Dented billboards. Shattered seats. Holes in luxury-box drywall.

Recently in Arizona, McGwire blew out a 64-bulb panel halfway up the center-field scoreboard with a Saturday night BP special. It will cost $2,000 to replace.

“I bet it’s not the first time in his life he hit a ball and somebody had to pay for it,” Florida Marlins coach Rich Donnelly said. “Imagine him at 12? I bet he probably hit a couple of balls through Mrs. Davis’ front door across the street.”

“He should have something built into his contract,” Donnelly said. “A slush fund to pay for all the damage he does.”

Season called due to incompetence

California Angels pitcher Chuck Finley on the Los Angeles Dodgers’ upheaval: “They’re going through the same thing we’ve gone through in the past, where you feel like you’re in limbo, and maybe the trades you’ve made aren’t working out so well. You know, there ought to be a rule in baseball, that if you’re so many games out by Aug. 1, like 22 games or something, you just pack it in and go home. Save yourself the misery. That way they can set the fields up for football. Lord knows, I would have saved about two years worth of games.”

Not in the Hunt

Expos utility whiz F. P. Santangelo, hit a dozen times this season by pitches, doesn’t think he has a shot at the record of Ron Hunt, hit 50 times in 1971. “A lot of other things are going to be broken if I get close to that record,” Santangelo said. “Like my ankle. And my knee.”

Santangelo is proposing that the season’s top plunkee should receive some kind of award (the Ron Hunt trophy?).

“We should use one of those little trophies you get out of the attic, with an arm missing and a leg chopped off,” Santangelo said. “One of those would be perfect.”

The last word …

“Our owner, Mr. Jerry Colangelo, was in Italy, so he would have missed it. But it was the CNN World Play of the Day, so he still saw it - in Italy. But if he had missed it on TV, he might have seen it over there, anyway. He might have seen it fly by on reentry.”

-Diamondbacks president Richard Dozer on a recent mammoth homer by St. Louis slugger Mark McGwire that drew a standing ovation in Arizona.