We once heard a voice rumbling out of the overgrown grass in our back
yard.
"If you build it, they will write about it," said the voice, which was
apparently battling laryngitis.
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Triviality
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Only five active players have had 30-homer, 100-RBI seasons
in each league. Name them.
(Answer at bottom)
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Well, the Astros, the Giants and the Tigers built it. So it's time for us
to fulfill our end of the bargain. Here's our look at Enron Field in Houston,
Pac Bell Park in San Francisco and Comerica Park in Detroit:
The Hill. There's no wilder feature in any existing baseball park than
the mini-mountain out there in center field in Houston, complete with a flag
pole at the top that's in play.
Phillies center fielder Doug Glanville, who was also the first man to bat
in Enron, reports that the first time he headed out to center field, he
climbed right to the summit of his little mountain top and surveyed his
kingdom.
"I just went up there and stood on top," Glanville said. "I was looking
for an old flag pole lying around that I could plant in the ground. I think
every center fielder should go up there, plant a flag and look down."
|  | | After years of cold weather at Candlestick Park, Giants fans can enjoy warm days at Pac Bell Park. |
Astros broadcaster-witticist Jim Deshaies told us he endorsed that plan.
"Yeah. Just like Neil Armstrong," Deshaies said. "They should put all the
outfielders up there on one knee for a photo, like Iwo Jima."
This hill isn't just there for the scenery, though. One of these days,
someone is going to have to chase a fly ball up Mt. Enron. Glanville said he
actually tried that during batting practice.
"It's not too bad as long as you've got the right hiking boots," he said.
"Nike's going to have to gear up, make some Air Himalayas or something."
The Train. Enron Field's other unique attribute is its giant train,
sitting atop the left-field wall, which leaves the "station" after every Astros
home run. This innovation is in honor of the old Union Station, which is just
across the street from the ballpark and now houses club offices, a la the
warehouse at Camden Yards.
"I'm a transportation guy, so I love the train," Glanville said. "But
they need a better way to have it go back. It just goes in reverse now. I
think they should have the train go above the field on a track around the
park. And if you hit the train, they can come up with all kinds of ground
rules. It would be considered in play, just like the flag pole."
Deshaies also put his stamp of approval on that idea.
"It could be kind of like the choo-choo train going around the tree at
Christmas," he said. "You know how they have the billboards that say, 'Hit
this sign, win a suit?' It could say, 'Hit the train, win a lifetime pass on
Amtrak.' "
The Bandbox. Oh, and one other notable feature of Enron: It's so
hitter-friendly, it almost makes Coors Field look like the Astrodome.
Consider this: There were 19 home runs hit in the first five games at
Home-ron Park. That's more than were hit in the first five games at any new
stadium in history. In the first five games at Coors, there were only eight
homers. How scary is that?
And consider this: In the first 38 seasons of baseball in Houston, about
3,000 games were played at the Astrodome and old mosquito-infested Colt Park.
The most homers ever hit in any game was six. In just the fourth game at
Home-ron, the Cardinals and Astros combined for eight.
Finally, consider this: In 35 years of Astrodome fun, the most home runs
ever hit in any three-game series was 10. The Cardinals and Astros just hit
18 in the second series at Home-Ron.
Get the picture? After perusing that left-field wall -- a claustrophobic
315 feet from home plate -- during batting practice last weekend, Phillies
pitcher Andy Ashby asked Jeff Bagwell: "When the game starts, do these walls
move back?" (Correct answer: Sorry, pal.)
"It isn't just that this is a hitter's park," Deshaies said. "It's that
we're coming from the Astrodome, the last bastion of pitcher safety. It's
like Dorothy spiraling to earth and realizing she wasn't in Kansas anymore.
Well, this isn't Houston anymore, Toto."
And that creates a whole new set of challenges, not just for the
pitchers. Think how many new home-run calls those broadcasters will have to
come up with as a billion home runs whiz by the big locomotive.
"We've got to come up with every imaginable call," Deshaies said. "The
trains will be leaving the station. And how about: 'Start shoveling the
coal.' I know one thing: We're going to use a lot of coal."
The Non-Stick. Out in San Francisco, it's also a whole new world. No
more frostbite. No more pop-ups getting caught in a tornado. No more
Candlestick Point. It's Pac Bell time. And if there's a more beautiful
ballpark in America, we haven't seen it.
Where else in this great land can you gaze beyond the right-field fence
and find people watching a ballgame on their boats, huh? Try that outside
the Metrodome some time.
"What a great sight," said the long-time dulcet voice of the Dodgers, Vin
Scully. "To look out there and see all the yachts, and the people sprawled
out on their decks with their TVs and drinks, it was unbelievable. It was
like a floating sports bar in right field."
And thanks to the presence of McCovey Cove out there in the bay, there's
our favorite new-ballpark creation ever. That would be a raft captained by
Don (Father Guido Sarducci) Novello, with a bunch of swimming dogs that will
be in charge of retrieving home run balls that plunk into the bay -- assuming
they're not caught up in a maritime demolition derby in the process.
"It's the only park around," Scully said, "where they can have a
seventh-inning fetch."
The Glove. And out beyond the fence in left, the Giants have erected a
baseball glove constructed out of steel and fiberglass. But when the Dodgers arrived for the Pac Bell
opener, Scully counted the fingers on the glove and kept coming up with just
four fingers.
"You have to wonder," he said, "if the Giants gave the Dodgers the other
finger."
The Hero. In a ballpark where the right-field fence is just 309 feet
away and the wind blows out to left on April afternoons, it shouldn't have
been shocking that in the very first game at Pac Bell Park, someone came
along to hit three home runs.
Except that that someone wasn't Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield or Shawn Green.
Um, Kevin Elster?
Nobody spends a year in retirement, then comes back and hits three home
runs in a game. Do they?
Well, they do now. Elster went from spending last summer "being a slob"
and then negotiating last winter to buy a bar in Las Vegas with Darius
Rucker, of Hootie and the Blowfish fame, to hitting three home runs in Tuesday's opener. Huh?
Fred McGriff has hit 391 homers in his career. He's never hit three in
one game. Rafael Palmeiro is closing in on 370 career homers. He's never hit
three in one game. Our two latest Hall of Famers -- Tony Perez and
Carlton Fisk -- never hit three in one game. But Kevin Elster came back from
retirement to do it.
Stats Inc.'s Jim Henzler reports that if you don't count Cecil Fielder
(who escaped to Japan) or rookies who had never played in the big leagues before,
the last man to hit three homers in one game after not playing one game in
the major leagues the previous season was Norm Zauchin of the 1954 Red Sox.
And now, half a century later, we have Kevin Elster, a man who has more lives
than that monster in "Alien."
Asked afterward how he liked the park, Elster replied: "What do you think?"
Yeah. Thought so. If this keeps up, it might start a trend: Retire for a
year. Then come back and do your Mark McGwire imitation.
Of course, that strategy might not work for everybody.
"If I sit out a year," said Elster's teammate, F.P. Santangelo
(sixth season, 20 career bombs), "I might get a couple more sacrifice bunts."
The Anti-Enron. Ah, but it isn't home-run paradise everywhere. Let's
turn our attention to Detroit, where Comerica Park just became the first new
ballpark to go trotless in its first three games since the late, great
Cleveland Municipal Stadium in 1932.
In Comerica, the alleys are deep, and the grass is almost as tall as Luis
Polonia. So after three games, there were more shutouts (two) than home runs
(zero). But then again, when you play baseball and the number of players on
the field (nine) is higher than the wind-chill factor (eight), it's possible
there are some mitigating circumstances.
"Don't judge it too quick," said Tigers manager Phil Garner. "If you want
to deaden balls, you put them in the refrigerator. Well, that's essentially
what we've had -- balls in a refrigerator."
The Ferris Wheel. Only one ballpark in the game has its own amusement
park. And that's Comerica, where a cool Ferris wheel (with baseball motif)
and carousel will be spinning beyond the stands during every game.
"I think once people get up out of their seat (to hit the rides), it will
be hard to get them back in them," said Tigers closer Todd Jones, who plans
to sneak a ride on the Ferris wheel himself one of these days. "But with our
team the last few years, that might be a good thing."
The Ambiance. To sum up our stadium seminar for this week, class, we
should remember that the word or phrase which best evokes the essence of
these new parks isn't really "homer" or "superbox" or "300-dollar-evening."
It's "retro."
These parks pay homage to all the great ballyards of yesteryear. That
hill in Houston is a tribute to old Crosley Field. The big right-field fence
at Pac Bell honors Fenway's Green Monster. The distant center-field fence in
Comerica is a fond remembrance of Tiger Stadium.
But when, we ask, will the new parks of tomorrow begin incorporating the
beloved features of, say, Montreal's bizarre Stade Olympique or
Philadelphia's beloved Veterans Stadium?
Shockingly, Santangelo, who began his career in Montreal, rejected our
suggestion that the next park in Quebec also include a giant crane in center
field.
"I don't think they'll ever build a park that remotely resembles Olympic
Stadium anywhere in the world," he said. "But I'd like to see those scraped
up bullpen windows from the Vet in a brand new park. Take that slimy
plexiglass from the 1970 Flyers games and use it in the new bullpen, so you
can't even see who's warming up for your own team -- from left field."
Yes, we see many, many more creative ballpark innovations just like that
one in the construction-boom years ahead. So if they keep building, we'll
keep writing.
Wild pitches
Box score line of the week (first prize)
Darryl Kile was loving life with the Cardinals until he had to make his "homecoming" in Denver on Thursday: 1 2/3
IP, 8 H, 11 R, 8 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 2 HR, 3 HBP, 2 WP. "Most of the pitches they
hit were fastballs right down the ... uh, 'right down Broadway' might be a
better phrase," Kile said. The big news for him: The Cardinals don't go back
to Coors this year.
Box score line of the week (second prize)
Tigers webmeister C.J.
Nitkowski spun off this line April 9 in Baltimore: 3 1/3 IP, 11 H, 11 R, 7
ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 102 pitches to get 10 outs. Five days later, there had been no
spin on this outing yet from Nitkowski's much-heralded CJBaseball.com web
site. But keep surfing.
Box score line of the week (third prize)
Royals reliever Brad Rigby had himself an appearance for the ages -- well, at least the Dark Ages -- Sunday against the Twins: 1 1/3 IP, 8 H, 7R, 7 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 4 HR. That's four homers, four
outs, if you're calculating along at home. And Stats Inc. reports that no one
has given up that many homers and gotten fewer outs since May 11, 1994, when
Rick Helling had a four-gopherball, three-out day. "I've had some bad
outings," Rigby said, "but I've never had one quite like that before."
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List of the week
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Scott Rolen and Kevin Elster just became the sixth and seventh active
players to hit the first home run at an existing park. Here is a list of
those seven -- and the parks they homered in -- plus a list of Hall of Famers
who hit the first home run at a current park:
Paul Sorrento: Camden Yards
Fred McGriff: SkyDome
Rico Brogna Coors Field
Russ Davis: Safeco Field
Michael Tucker: Turner Field
Scott Rolen: Enron Field
Kevin Elster: Pac Bell Park
Hall of Famers
Babe Ruth: Yankee Stadium
Hank Aaron: Riverfront (now Cinergy Field)
Willie Stargell: Shea Stadium
Tony Perez: Three Rivers Stadium
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Insane game of the week
With all those wild walk-off endings the Kansas
City Royals have had lately, it's hard to believe their most amazing game was
one they didn't win. All that happened in their 13-7 loss to the Twins last
Sunday was this:
They got behind, 13-0. They gave up back-to-back-to-back homers (all off the
aforementioned Mr. Rigby). In fact, they gave up six home runs in one game
to the Twins, a team that almost got outhomered last year by Mark McGwire.
Meanwhile, the Royals also were seven outs from having a perfect game thrown
against them by Eric Milton.
But an inning later, they'd closed to within 13-7. They went from having no
baserunners in their first 20 at-bats to having nine straight hitters reach
base in the eighth. And they, too, hit back-to-back-to-back homers. Which meant that
two teams which didn't even launch back-to-back-to-backers in the same decade
in the '90s had just become the first teams ever to do it in the same game.
How did all this happen?
"That game," concluded Johnny Damon, "was a little crazy."
Name game of the week
It wasn't exactly up there with last year's
legendary Bobby Jones-vs.-Bobby Jones pitching matchup. But when Jimmy
Anderson (Pirates) met Brian Anderson (Diamondbacks) April 8, it was
(ta-daaaa) the first duel in baseball history between two pitchers named
Anderson.
Funny thing is, we're not sure quite how this momentous occasion took so
long, considering there have been close to 40 players named Anderson or
Andersen traipsing through the Baseball Encyclopedia. So, in our search for
an explanation, we asked longtime pitcher-funnyman Larry Andersen how come he
never got mixed up in any Andersen-versus-Andersen battles.
"I did," he said. "They just happened to be court battles."
Catwalkathon of the week
It was another rough week for those pesky
catwalks that dangle from the top of the world's funkiest dome, Tropicana
Field.
On April 7, we had a first in the adventurous history of the catwalks: Two
different catwalks got hit by fly balls in the same game. Jim Thome had the
good sense to plunk one off the "C" ring -- which counts as a home run. But
Jose Canseco made the mistake of pounding a ball off the "B" ring, 150 feet
up -- and the ground rules say that ring is in play.
"If Canseco's ball doesn't hit the catwalk," said Cleveland catcher Sandy
Alomar, "it lands at our hotel."
As for Thome's rocket, which hit a ring 100 feet up and 405 feet from the
plate, pitcher Jaret Wright said: "I couldn't follow the ball. I think it
exploded."
Then, on Sunday, Greg Vaughn launched yet another space shuttle that appeared
to hit the "B" ring, which is supposed to be in play. But ump John Shulock
ruled that it hit the "C" ring, making it a home run. Vaughn, for his part,
said he had no idea what was going on.
"I've never seen anything like it," he said. "It's like a big old pinball
machine, ricocheting all over."
Hidden-ball trick of the week
Speaking of the Padres, they honored the
longtime military presence in San Diego on Thursday by wearing
military-style camouflage uniforms. Among the most excited people in baseball
over this fascinating occasion was Brian Anderson, who started for Arizona against the
Padres.
"I hope I can see them," Anderson told the East Valley Tribune's Ed Price
before the game. "You've got to see your opponent in order to beat them. I'll
try to throw them that stealth pitch."
Anderson also worried about trick plays: "They might play a weird shift
in the outfield, and we'll have no idea where they are."
Well, Anderson proved he was pretty darned deceptive himself, because he
struck out seven in seven innings and cleverly disguised his first win of the
year.
Hit man of the week
All those general managers who didn't trade
for Jim Edmonds this winter were probably looking for bridges to hurl
themselves off of this week. All Edmonds did for the Cardinals was get nine
straight hits and reach base 12 straight trips -- until Astros reliever Yorkis
Perez finally struck him out Wednesday. Looking.
"I knew we were gonna win," said Houston manager Larry Dierker, "when we
got Edmonds out."
Virgin bullpens of the week
It wasn't just the home run column that was
empty after the first three games at Comerica Park. Those brand new bullpens
were 100 percent vacant themselves. Theoretically, the bullpens were supposed
to be heated. But it was still so cold, relievers just warmed up in the
indoor batting cages -- and the managers had to call them out of the dugouts
to bring them into games.
"They spent $350 million on a new stadium," said Mariners manager Lou
Piniella. "The least they could do was go out and rent four heaters."
Ironically, though, Tigers relievers Doug Brocail and Todd Jones got
ready in the heat of the cages -- then went to the mound in short sleeves.
Fellow bullpener Danny Patterson immediately issued a policy statement
endorsing sweatshirts.
"They're trying to be cool-daddy macho men," Patterson told Booth
Newspapers' Danny Knobler. "I wanted to be warm."
Useless information dept.
Are there a few home runs being hit, or what? Through the first 132 games
of this season, the home-run rate (2.72 per game) was nearly double the rate
in 1992 (1.44). That's not 1892, friends. That's 1992. Of the top eight
home run hitters that year, six are still active. So it's many of the same
players hitting twice as many home runs. Unbelievable.
The amazing Jim Henzler, of Stats Inc., reports that when Angels rookie
Scott Schoeneweis threw a shutout April 10, he became just the third active
pitcher with a last name that long (11 letters) to throw a shutout. Todd
Stottlemyre (also 11 letters) owns six career shutouts. And the active
leader, Jason Isringhausen (12 letters), shut out the Marlins on
June 9, 1996 while with the Mets.
Matter of fact, shutouts are in, even with all those home run balls flying.
We saw more complete-game shutouts in the last week (six) than we had all
last April (four).
For all the hysteria over the slow starts by the Griffey-McGwire-Sosa King
of Swing Trio, they actually homered on the same day this year more than a
month earlier than they did last year. They all made a trot April 9 this
year. The first day all three homered last year was May 19.
How frightening are those Indians? Over the last two seasons, they've
scored 20 runs once, 18 once, 17 once (last Sunday in Tampa Bay), 15 twice,
14 five times, 13 five times, 12 three times, 11 five times and 10 seven
times.
Mr. Grand Slam, Omar Vizquel, hit his fourth career slam April 7, out of
just 35 lifetime homers. But the Sultan of Swat Stats, SABR historian David Vincent,
reports that three other players hit that many slams and had FEWER career
homers: Mike Cubbage (four of 34), Kurt Bevacqua (four of 27) and Frank
LaPorte (four of 15).
Vincent also reports that before Kevin Elster's trifecta in the Pac Bell
Park opener, the earliest three-homer game at any new stadium came in Game
No. 6 -- at both Stade Olympique (April 20, 1977, by Gary Carter) and the old
Los Angeles Coliseum (April 24, 1958, by Lee Walls).
It took Mike Hargrove one week as Orioles manager to beat the Indians more
times than Ray Miller did all of last season. (Miller was 1-9. Hargrove is
2-1.)
Not only had there never been a game in which both teams hit
back-to-back-to-back homers before the Royals and Twins did it last Sunday, SABR's Lee Sinin reports there never had been any day in history in which
ANY two teams did it, against or not against each other.
What does it say about the state of the home run in modern baseball that on
Wednesday, there were 25 home runs hit. And, as loyal reader Dan Heisman
observed, not one was hit by any of the top 49 men on the active career-homer list. Hard to believe.
Finally, the great Steve Hirdt of the Elias Sports Bureau reports that the
Dodgers played 1,000 road games against the Giants in the 1900s and only once
scored six runs in the top of the first inning. They did it Thursday, in
their first road series against the Giants of 2000. What a sport.
Trivia answer
Fred McGriff, Mark McGwire, Matt Williams, Robin Ventura, David Justice.
Jayson Stark is a senior writer at ESPN.com. | |
ALSO SEE
Stark: Rumblings and Grumblings
Stark: Rickey to the rescue
Stark: Realignment still in discussion
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