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Sunday, April 21, 2002

By Steve Ziants, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

It has been a busy week of hard-hitting investigative reporting for The Guy In The Stands. After countless telephone calls (at least five) and trips to the microfilm machine, this much The Guy knows: On the afternoon of Oct. 13, 1960, Bill Mazeroski hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to beat the Yankees in Game 7 of the World Series. He circled the Forbes Field bases ... first ... second ... third ... finally the last 90 feet toward home plate with half of Western Pennsylvania in tow. At last, his left foot came down on home plate.

Maybe you've heard of it.

What happened in the ensuing 30 minutes and 40 years isn't so clear. That's why the home plate Maz touched, the plate that was to go on the virtual auction block April 11 after four decades in oblivion, was a last-minute scratch. What's more, it doesn't figure to be back anytime soon.

What about those 30 minutes? Those 40 years?

Well ...

Rick Mecca, then a 13-year-old sitting in a box seat just past the first-base dugout, says he and two friends borrowed tools from the groundskeeper's shed and dug up the plate. "I slept with it under my bed for 25 years or so," Mecca told MastroNet, an online auction company in Oak Brook, Ill. It was that plate Mecca, now living in Atlanta, intended to sell.

The Guy related Mecca's story in his column April 7.

George Baird of Conneaut, Pa., took note. No, no, no. His father, Harold Baird, then in his early 30s, was the fan who had lifted the plate. "I took my car keys and dug in along the edges of the plate to pull it up," says Harold, who was sitting just to the left of home plate with a ticket he had bought from a scalper for $8.

"There were others pushing and grabbing. It was chaos. I ended up getting a police escort out of there," says Baird, who now lives in Palm Harbor, Fla.

Unfortunately, when he parted ways with his girlfriend in 1963, about all he got out with was his clothes. The plate had to be left behind. He hasn't seen it since.

All together now: Yeah, right! What weight does a decades-old tale of an old man carry against a man with an equally good story and a plate?

As it turned out, plenty. Baird's story was documented in an Alvin Rosensweet story on the front page of the Oct. 14, 1960, edition of the Post-Gazette. Right down to Baird's address and the police escort.

"We had to pull [the plate]," said Brian Marrent of MastroNet. "The guy with the plate had no documentation, and the guy with the article had no plate. This is the weirdest thing I've ever had in the auction business. ... I've never had an item where two people are so adamant about their stories."

And neither man is backing off his claim.

The newly minted plate mystery makes it easier to understand why Major League Baseball began encoding potential memorabilia in 1998 during Mark McGwire's pursuit of Roger Maris.

"I'd like to give it to Cyril Wecht to do the DNA," joked Mecca.

That might have worked with Luis Gonzalez's ABC gum, but in Maz's case, he can no more chew on another plate than he can turn back the clock to Oct. 13, 1960 and hit another home run. It was one-of-a-kind. And so was the plate upon which he stepped ... wherever it might be. Marrent estimates the plate would have fetched between $20,000 and $50,000.

Not knowing makes the first paragraph of that 40-plus-year-old Rosensweet story so ironic. For in it he wrote with some confidence that the plate would be "preserved for posterity, like the first airplane or a Lincoln manuscript."

If that's the case, someone had better warn the Smithsonian.

Shaking the booty

Jeff Cirillo’s error in the sixth inning in Seattle last night means that Carrick’s John Wehner won’t be erased from the major-league record book, after all. Cirillo was three innings from breaking Wehner’s record of 99 consecutive errorless games by a third baseman when he failed to handle a ball hit by the Rangers’ Bill Haselman with two outs in the sixth. Seattle’s Cirillo now shares the record with Wehner.

Wehner? Yes, Wehner.

He -- not Brooks, not Michael Jack, not even Aurelio Rodriguez -- has held the record since 2000. It is as unlikely a record as is its owner, who played only 155 games at third base in an 11-year career that included two stints with the Pirates. Not as unlikely as Ozzy Osbourne joining Ozzie Nelson in the fraternity of TVLand fathers, mind you, but close. It was constructed over nine seasons, three organizations and eight trips to the minors. Sort of like a PennDOT highway project. It began Aug. 2, 1992, and ended with the final game at Three Rivers Stadium Oct. 1, 2000.

“I think there should be an asterisk next to it,” Wehner says, “because a lot of those games I went in as a late-inning replacement. It wasn’t like I had 99 straight starts.”

At the same time, it isn’t a cheap record. He accepted more than 200 chances during the streak’s oft-interrupted run.

“When I look back, that’s the thing I’m most proud of,” Wehner said, “that I hold a major-league record.”

And will for awhile longer.

A week to remember?

"I wouldn't ever want to forget this day," former Pirates prospect Ron Wright, 26, told reporters last Sunday. "I have been waiting for this day for my whole life." All of which makes The Guy wonder about the quality of Wright's life up to now.

Earlier Sunday -- playing for the Seattle Mariners against Texas in his first big-league game -- Wright struck out in his first at-bat, hit into a triple play in his second and, to complete the trifecta, grounded into a double play in his third.

The week had such a promising start, too. Two days before, after eight seasons in the minors and countless games missed to back problems that ultimately cost him his spot on the Pirates' ladder, the Mariners called Wright up to the majors for the first time to take the roster spot of injured Edgar Martinez.

Then Sunday. His week couldn't get any worse, right? Wrong. Tuesday, the Mariners designated him for assignment.

Remember us?

The revamped Hall of Fame veterans committee has produced its initial ballot of 200 players and 60 managers, umpires and executives. Among those who passed first muster are former Pirates Babe Adams, Elroy Face, Manny Sanguillen, Harvey Haddix, Rip Sewell, Vernon Law, Maury Wills, Dick Groat, Danny Murtaugh, Chuck Tanner, John Galbreath and Barney Dreyfuss, Wampum's Dick Allen, and Pittsburgh's Glenn Beckert and Sam McDowell. The players list will be pared to 25 and the list of managers, umps and execs to 15 by mid-summer, with an additional five players added by an independent panel of Hall of Fame members. The final ballot will be announced in the fall and voted on early in 2003.

You mean you're not famous?

Mets backup catcher Vance Wilson hit his first big-league homer April 13 vs. Montreal. The girl who caught it returned it and all she wanted was an autographed ball in return. Whose autograph? Teammate Mike Piazza? Mo Vaughn? Roberto Alomar? No, she wanted Wilson's. Said Wilson: "She must not be a very big baseball fan."

Go figure

Attention, readers: Before reading, place fingers on top of head. Now scratch. Chris Mueller, the owner of Mueller Sports Medicine in Prairie du Sac, Wisc., and the man who paid $10,000 to buy the now-storied piece of Luis Gonzalez ABC gum this week, says he would have gone as high as $50,000. There is, however, an agenda to his madness. Mueller's company produces Quench, a sports gum. "We want everyone to send their old gum to us and we'll give them a free sample," Mueller said. One advertising guru estimates Mueller's winning bid could be worth $500,000-$750,000 in equivalent advertising i.e. mentions in news stories and columns like this. So there you go, Chris. Keep the gum. The Guy will take his cut in $10s and $20s.

Good, wild & ugly

Box score lines of the week:

Good: Lance Berkman, Astros, Tuesday: 5 AB, 3 R, 3 H, 3 HRs, 5 RBIs in an 8-3 win vs. the Reds. Berkman got his first haircut since November before the series. Said teammate Jeff Bagwell: "The Samson theory is out the window."

Wild: Luis Vizcaino, Brewers, Sunday: 2/3 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 Ks in a 4-3 win vs. the Giants. Efficient? He threw one pitch in the bottom of the seventh, got Yorvit Torrealba to ground into a double play, then watched his teammates score twice in the top of the eighth to take the lead.

Ugly: Chuck Finley, Indians, Tuesday: 1 2/3 IP, 7 H, 9 R, 8 ER, 1 BB, 0 Ks in a 10-5 loss to the White Sox. There is the Mendoza Line for hitters. And now the Tawny Kitaen line for pitchers.

Love and baseball

On the subject of Finley's night at Comiskey Park Tuesday, fans offered him no quarter in his first start on the road since Kitaen, his actress-wife, was charged with spousal abuse April 3. One fan, wrote the Chicago Tribune, dangled a woman's black spiked heel in his direction and yelled for him to autograph it. Even "sympathetic" fans wanted to be David Letterman. "That's OK, Chuck," shouted one as Finley warmed up in the bullpen, "I got my butt kicked by my wife, too."

This 'n' that

A certain former owner of the Texas Rangers appears on the preliminary Hall of Fame veterans ballot. Maybe you remember him -- George W. Bush. ... Birthday wishes to Dodgers reliever Jesse Orosco, the oldest player in the bigs. He turns 45 today -- the oldest relief pitcher in the majors since Hoyt Wilhelm (48) in 1972. ... Texas' Rafael Palmeiro hit his 450th home run Friday, making him only the 15th player in history with 450 homers and 2,500 hits. ... April 13 was on-field photo day at Pac Bell Park. The last Giants player to leave the field? Barry Bonds. No kidding. In fact, he stayed out a half-hour extra and when he finally headed for the dugout, fans applauded. ... Bonds' next home run will be his 400th as a Giant. ...

What would the odds have been that on April 21, Jeremy Giambi would have more homers (4) than brother Jason (3)? ... Devil Rays Manager Hal McRae proved to be a master of the obvious after a 14-7 loss to Toronto April 12, a game in which his pitchers threw 200 pitches: "Once you get past 140, you decrease your chances of winning." ... A sign the home run explosion of recent years is waning? Lance Berkman's three-homer game Tuesday was the first in the majors this season. By April 16 last season, there already had been three. ... Then again, longtime backup catcher Tom Prince hit two home runs for the Twins in a 12-3 win vs. Cleveland Friday, giving him 20 in a 16-year career. But of those 20, he owns three two-homer games. ... Their 6-11 start has been so tough on the Rockies, even players wives are going on the DL. Todd Zeile's wife, 1984 Olympic gymnast Julianne McNamara, had surgery this week after her ankle was broken when she fell off a curb at Coors Field Tuesday.

Shot and a jeer

Shot: The Guy isn't sure which was more surprising Tuesday night -- that the Tigers finally won a game or that Jose Lima got the win

Jeer: To Milwaukee. The Brewers get swept by the Pirates, fire their manager and are 4-12 going into the weekend ... and still don't rank as the city's greatest disappointment of the week (see George Karl & the NBA's Bucks). Have a nice summer!