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Sunday, April 14, 2002

By Steve Ziants, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Barry Bonds caught and passed Harmon Killebrew for No. 6 on the home run list this weekend and everyone in the baseball world genuflected. But moments such as Monday night at Coors Field are for the Todd Zeiles of the world. Veteran players who never quite managed to play up to their expected level of greatness nor down to the unfulfilled promise of, oh, Jerome Walton.

They are nights, too, that The Guy In The Stands lives for.

Zeile, who turns 37 in September, will not make the Hall of Fame. He won’t see his number retired (with what team did he ever play long enough?) And he will never show up on any franchise’s career top-10 list despite being the owner of 218 home runs and 956 runs batted in.

But in the seventh inning of an 8-4 loss to the Houston Astros, in his first home game as a Colorado Rockie and on a day that Houston’s Craig Biggio would hit for the cycle and garner what little national attention this game would command, Zeile cobbled out a bit of immortality. Granted, the sort that lends itself more to The Guy’s never-ending trivial pursuits than Cooperstown. But immortality nonetheless.

Leading off the seventh, Zeile hit an 0-1 pitch from Roy Oswalt over the fence in left field for his first home run as a Rockie. He would go on to homer in three consecutive games before the week was through and even scratch out a single Thursday night against Randy Johnson. But it will be Monday night that baseball writers years from now will recall. That singular blast gave him a home run for his ninth different major-league team, tying an obscure record first set by Tommy Davis (1959-76) and tied by Atlanta’s Dave Martinez (1986-present).

Some will want to put an asterisk next to Zeile’s name. After all, Martinez hit home runs for nine teams while hitting only a total of 91. Others will say that Davis’ initial feat was far more difficult, coming mostly as it did in an era when there were only 20 teams with which to find employment.

They would be wrong.

Neither had the pressure of a famous family name to live up to. Now, you’re thinking: Zeile is a famous family name? No. But how about Adams? Zeile, you see, is a direct descendant of former presidents John and John Quincy Adams (and you can look it up right there on page 157 of the 2002 Rockies media guide). So, in effect, Zeile not only homered for his ninth team, but became the first great-great-great-great-grand-journeyman of two founding fathers to be connected across three centuries by an altogether meaningless (but necessary to the lifeblood of baseball and this column) statistic.

One that, as they say, won’t show up in the box score.

Thumbs up

Last week, The Guy solicited reader reviews of “The Rookie” -- the new Disney movie based on the 1999 story of 35-year-old science teacher Jim Morris turned Devil Rays relief pitcher. Of the dozen or so e-mails, there wasn’t a thumbs down among them. Five called it the best baseball movie ever made, the rest rated it at least in the top five. “We don’t have enough adjectives or the vocabulary to express just how great and inspiring the movie is,” writes Irene and Jack. Another named Ted writes: “My 10-year-old son looked at me while I watched the movie and asked, ‘Dad, why are you crying?’” Sounds like The Wife In The Stands, who cried seven different times.

Wad of cash

If The Guy had only known there was such a market for ABC (Already Been Chewed) gum, he wouldn’t have left so much stuck to the bottom of the study hall tables at Harvey Bolich Junior High. As of Thursday, the bid on Luis Gonzalez’s now-famous used wad of Bazooka (is it really his?) had reached $3,470.01 on eBay. Topps, the longtime ballcard manufacturer, even entered the bidding, which is only fitting since the gum by now is hard, stale and tasteless.

Even fellow ballplayers got caught up in the absurdity of the moment. In a game in Milwaukee April 5, Gonzalez -- playing right field -- was about to flip still another piece of valuable memorabilia onto the Miller Field turf when he heard someone shout to him: “Over here, I’ll take it.” The souvenir hunter: Brewers relief pitcher Ray King.

Strange, but true

As part of baseball’s ongoing tribute to victims of 9/11, the commissioner’s office requested that the first night game in each ballpark this season be stopped at 9:11 p.m. for a moment of silence. When the first night game at Cinergy Field was halted April 3, Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune was struck by a “Twilight Zone” bit of happenstance. Standing side by side at home plate were Cubs catcher Todd Hundley, wearing No. 9, and next Reds batter Barry Larkin, wearing No. 11.

The voice of the talisman

The Phillies fly into town this week to begin a weekend series at PNC Park. You can bet that veteran announcer Harry Kalas will be sitting pretty in the back of the team plane. Why does this deserve mention? Kalas had been a fixture in the back until a small group of players pushed for his removal in early June 2001. Bad move. The then-surprising Phillies, 35-18 and leading the NL East by eight games at the time, went 50-54 the rest of the way and finished two games behind Atlanta.

Did the players’ protest bother Kalas, the voice of the Phillies since 1971? “The one thing I discovered is that the Coors Light is just as cold in the middle of the plane as it is in the back,” he said.

Unit pricing

Arizona’s Randy Johnson is 3-0 to start the season. No surprise there. But by going 3 for 3, he is suddenly in some very elite company that has nothing to do with strikeouts. Johnson’s 8-4 victory in Colorado Thursday was his 203rd career win in his 404th game -- a success rate of 50.2 percent. Only 10 200-game winners in history have won half their games. Christy Mathewson (373 in 635, 58.7 percent) heads the list. Roger Clemens (281 in 548, 51.3 perecent) is first among active pitchers.

Good, wild and ugly

Box score lines of the week:

Good: Curt Schilling, Diamondbacks, Sunday: 9 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 17 Ks in a 2-0 win vs. the Brewers. Seventeen strikeouts is impressive. On the other hand, the Brewers were the ones doing the flailing (see below).

Wild: Indians, Monday, 0 LOB in a 9-5 win vs. the Twins. It marked the first time a team had scored as many as nine runs and not left a runner on base since the 1974 Indians turned the trick.

Ugly: John Smoltz, Braves, April 6: 2/3 IP, 6 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 2 BB, 0 Ks on 36 pitches in an 11-2 loss to the Mets. In 361 starts, he never gave up eight runs in an inning. Proof that he could appreciate the moment: “Whew! That was unbelievable. It took me a long time to accomplish something like that.”

Ugly: Team division

The Brewers struck out 50 times -- nine in 11 at-bats by Geoff Jenkins alone -- in dropping two of three games to Arizona last weekend. Even for the Brewers, who set a major-league record with 1,399 whiffs in 2001, the number was staggering. Fueled by their swing-and-a-miss weekend, they are on pace to blow by their record sometime in August en route to 1,530.

Series of the week

Braves (6-5 through Friday) at Mets (6-5), tomorrow-Wednesday. ... Revamped Mets took 2 of 3 in Atlanta’s Turner Field last weekend, where they never do well. A sign that this might be their year? ... The season is only two weeks old, but is the Mets’ 2.16 team ERA an indication that their pitching isn’t as much of a question mark as we believed. ... Newcomer Gary Sheffield (.310, 3 HRs, 8 RBIs) is giving Atlanta’s offense exactly the sort of pop the Braves had hoped for when they dealt for him.

This ’n’ that

The Marlins managed to tick off what few fans they have left. Although they drew barely 23,000 for their home opener Monday, the concession stands in Pro Player Stadium still somehow managed to run out of hot dogs before the fifth inning. ... Miller Park, which like PNC Park opened in 2001, drew 94,122 for the Brewers’ first home series, down 19 percent from the 116,372 they drew for their park-opening three-game set vs. the Reds in 2001. A drop could almost be expected, except the opponent was the world champion Diamondbacks, making their only trip of 2002 to Milwaukee. ... In a strange quirk of interleague scheduling, the Rockies play all six 2001 division champions this season. ... Toronto Manager Buck Martinez was guest conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra April 6. He still needs a little work on his hand signals, though. During one key stretch, the lead bassoonist took two counts, then tried to steal second. ...Randy Johnson has a 13-game winning streak against Milwaukee, dating to Aug. 5, 1992. How long ago was that? The Brewers were still in the American League. ... Arizona is 6-0 when Johnson or Curt Schilling starts, 1-5 when they do not. ...

The trade for Expos closer Scott Strickland casts doubt on whether the Mets believe John Franco, 41, will come back from his mysterious elbow ailment. ... Yankees starters (7-0, 1.09 ERA, 22 hits in 49 2/3 IP) were so dominant in their seven-game winning streak that ended Wednesday that when Joe Torre brought on All-Star closer Mariano Rivera in relief of Orlando Hernandez in the ninth inning April 6, “I was glad to see him come in, and it isn’t that often you say that about Mariano Rivera,” said Tampa Bay Manager Hal McRae. ... Injury of the week: Philadelphia’s Dave Hollins went on the DL with an infected left knee, the result of spider bites in spring training. ... Rockies outfielder Larry Walker played in his 1,533rd game April 6, breaking the record for Canadian-born players previously held by Terry Puhl. ... The best quote of the week belonged to Cardinals pitcher Woody Williams. Upon going on the DL with a strained muscle in his left side: “I thought that was fat in that area. I didn’t know you could pull fat.”

Shot and a jeer

Shot: Have fans fired a shot across the bow of the labor-management negotiation table? The Astros (21,258 April 4 vs. Milwaukee), the Brewers (23,311 Sunday vs. Arizona), the Indians (23,760 Tuesday vs. Minnesota), the Orioles (22,781 Wednesday vs. Tampa Bay), the Rockies (29,522 Wednesday vs. Houston), the Marlins (4,466 Thursday vs. Montreal) and the Pirates (12,795 Thursday vs. Cincinnati) all drew the smallest crowds in the history of their parks.

Jeer: Little could we have imagined when Andy Warhol prophesied decades ago that everyone would have their 15 minutes of fame that Bazooka Joe was part of everyone.