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Sunday, August 11, 2002

Here's one for medical science: Is it possible to get reverse Alzheimer's? To get it backward? Where you lose your yesterday but remember your yesteryear?

The Guy In The Stands wants to know. He can remember things from 30 years ago -- ABC's Friday night lineup (Brady Bunch, Partridge Family, Room 222, The Odd Couple), the Pirates' 1971 batting order (Cash, Oliver, Clemente, Stargell ...) -- but he can't name three players in the Twins' starting lineup from three days ago.

Not their names. Not their positions. The Guy supposes Killebrew, Cardenas, Carew and Reese aren't the infield anymore, huh? No, didn't think so.

This is not a good thing for someone in The Guy's position.

He really should know, seeing as these seemingly futureless Twins of Bud Selig's off-season dreams of contraction, went into Friday with a 14-game lead in the American League Central. For those of you not keeping score at home, that's a bigger spread than anything this side of the Atlanta Braves and Anna Nicole Smith's backside.

The Guy has to believe he's not alone in not knowing his Kielty from his Koskie, though. So he went in search of some mental gimmicks, of some offbeat factoids impossible to forget to associate with this bunch of kids otherwise so anonymous that they wouldn't have to apply to be taken off a telemarketer list -- they wouldn't have been on it to begin with.

For example: Did you know that one-third of the players in their lineup have last names that include the letter 'Z'? Already The Guy can see that this is a classy, handsome, witty bunch of fellas.

Jacque Jones, LF: No. 11 in your programs. With the help of Chuck Knoblauch before him, he has helped elevate uniform No. 11 to a place of prominence in club history after a run of 30 years in which it was worn by the likes of Frank Kostro, Brant Alyea, Terry "Bud" Bulling and Sal Butera.

Cristian Guzman, SS: In the era of the long ball, he is the lone active player with 20 triples in a season (2000).

Corey Koskie, 3B: The only player in history not born on Krypton to have won a game by stopping a speeding ball with his chest as he did Sunday when Royals first baseman Chan Perry attempted to fire the ball home to cut off the winning run in the 10th inning ... and instead drilled Koskie in the letters as he ran down the first-base line.

David Ortiz, DH: Unbeknownst to him, his wrist was broken in the fourth inning of a game vs. the Royals May 4, 2001. No matter. He hit a 400-foot home run the next inning ... then went on the DL for two months.

Torii Hunter, CF: Nickname is "Spidey" for the way he climbs walls. Just ask Barry Bonds.

Doug Mientkiewicz, 1B: He won gold with Team USA in Sydney, but imagine what you could do with Mientkiewicz on a Scrabble board. Straight score: 32 points.

Bobby Kielty, RF: Has never hit .300 as a pro, but took a .301 average (66 for 219) into yesterday.

A.J. Pierzynski, C: Joins a long line of catchers that includes Tony Pena, Mike LaValliere, Mike Piazza and Mike Lieberthal for whom Tom Prince has caddied in a 16-year career that might prove to be more incredible than the Fort Pitt Tunnel opening ahead of schedule.

Luis Rivas, 2B: Although his handle on talent might be one of the reasons the Indians fired him, then-Cleveland Manager Charlie Manuel said in June that Rivas reminds him of a young Jackie Robinson.

Eric Milton, P: Almost everyone has a bobblehead day anymore. But can Bonds, Willie Mays or Hank Aaron claim to have had their very own fishing weasels handed out to fans on a Sunday afternoon?

So there you go. Some strange. All true. Which makes The Guy, with his perverse sense for all things trivial, wonder why Bud would ever want to contract this team. Then again, on the bright side, maybe Bud will just forget about them like everyone else.

Tougher than most

The eyes of the baseball world were focused on San Francisco and Barry Bonds this week as Bonds reached the 600-home run milestone. But Bonds' dad, Bobby, says 600 will not prove to be the toughest one for his son. "If there's a home run that will really be significant to him, and I really believe this," Bobby said, "is if he ever gets to the point where he's going to hit 661 [and pass Willie Mays for third place all-time]. Because of his godfather. Because he puts Willie on such a high plateau. That's the ultimate. That's going to be the most difficult one for him to hit."

600 trivia

Bonds is only the fourth player in 71 years to hit a 600th homer. Yet, in a strange twist, there are at least three people who will have seen three of the four 600 balls in person -- Bobby Bonds, ex-Giants player and now special assistant Jim Davenport and Giants broadcaster Lon Simmons. They saw teammate Willie Mays' 600th Sept. 22, 1969, then two years later saw Hank Aaron's 600th against the Giants April 27, 1971. Friday they saw Bonds'. ... The Giants drew better than 40,000 fans for each of their games this week as fans hoped to see history. Apparently, this be-part-of-the-moment mentality wasn't so compelling 30 years ago. The night Mays hit No. 600, a mere 4,779 were in the stands in San Diego. When Aaron hit his in Atlanta, only 13,494 were on hand.

Double dribblers

While Bonds was in the midst of joining an exclusive club, Toronto rookie Mark Hendrickson, 27, joined a pretty rare group, too, when he pitched a third of an inning Tuesday in Toronto's 14-12 win vs. the Mariners. He became the 10th man to play in both the major leagues and the NBA. Hendrickson, a 6-foot, 9-inch forward from Washington State, played with four NBA teams from 1996-2000 before giving it up to pursue baseball, a sport in which he'd been drafted six times. He joins Danny Ainge, Gene Conley, Dave DeBusschere, Dick Groat, Frankie Baumholtz, Cotton Nash, Ron Reed, Chuck Connors and Steve Hamilton as the only baseball/basketball double dribblers.

Even with less than a week in the bigs, though, Hendrickson was already sounding like he belonged in the sport that gave us Yogi and Dizzy.. "Obviously, I'm a little bit up there in age, but yet my arm is fairly young."

Bull's-eye

Move over John Madden, there's a new electronic-crayon slinger in town -- Twins TV analyst Bert Blyleven. Not only has the team caught on again with fans, but so has Blyleven's habit of circling fans in the stands at random with his telestrator during games. Fans now come to games with "Circle Me, Bert" signs. And it's spreading. During a game at Detroit's Comerica Park, a sign was spotted: "I drove 768 miles from Coon Rapids to be circled." Needless to say, he went home a contented fan.

For pitcher, for poorer

Some guys play golf. Some drink. Others panic. Florida's Michael Tejerea bucked tradition before getting married Sunday -- he pitched seven shutout innings in a 7-2 win against Milwaukee. "I didn't plan to get married on the same day I pitched, but it just worked out that way," he said. Guess the marriage lesson to be learned here is always check the day's probables before applying for the license.

Any enemy of our enemy ...

The Yankees-Red Sox rivalry manifests itself in some most unusual ways. When the Athletics arrived at Yankee Stadium Friday for the first of a three-game series, Yankees fans milling around outside the players' entrance gave A's center fielder Terrence Long a warm ovation. Long, if you recall, robbed Boston's Manny Ramirez of what would have been a game-ending three-run homer at Fenway two nights before.

Good, wild & ugly

Box score lines of the week:

Good: Randy Johnson, Diamondbacks, Monday: 9 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 11 Ks in a 2-0 win vs. the Mets. Hmmm! So how would he respond to a 149-pitch complete game in his previous start? In 90-degree heat? And just a month before his 39th birthday? Answer delivered.

Wild: Aaron Boone, Reds, Friday: 5 AB, 3 R, 4 H, 3 HRs, 5 RBIs in a 12-10 win vs. the Padres. Where to begin. The fact that he is the second Red in five days to hit three homers in a game vs. the Padres (Russell Branyan did it Sunday)? The fact that he is the second Boone brother to hit two homers in an inning this season (brother Bret did it May 2 vs. the White Sox)? Or the almost impossible fact that a player has hit two homers in one inning only 45 times in major-league history ... but Boone is the sixth to do it in the past 69 days?

Ugly: Brett Tomko, Padres, Friday: 3 1/3 IP, 9 H, 10 R, 10 ER, 3 BB, 3 Ks in a 12-10 loss vs. the Reds. How is it that a pitcher victimized for the worst first inning in club history (9 runs) is still around in the fourth to give up Boone's third homer?

This 'n' that

With a two-run double in the eighth Wednesday against the Giants, Cubs first baseman Fred McGriff reached 80 RBIs for the 15th consecutive season. Big? The only player with a longer streak is Hank Aaron (17 seasons). ... Who could have imagined that when the Pirates released a struggling Tim Wakefield before the 1995 season that eight years later he'd still be pitching and today against the Twins be going for his 100th career win. ... Prince Fielder, 18, son of former All-Star basher Cecil Fielder and the No. 1 pick of the Brewers in June, hit .431 with 9 homers and 30 RBIs in his first 28 games as a pro for Ogden in the rookie Pioneer League. ... Hard-luck former Pirates pitcher Jose Silva, already on the Reds' DL because of a sore shoulder, had his right ankle cut on a door at Cinergy Field yesterday. It required 14 pitches. ... The Fort Worth (Texas) Cats' opponent reportedly didn't appreciate the Cats' recent ballpark promotion -- "You Might Be A Redneck Night." The opponent? The Jackson Senators from Jackson, Miss. Go figure. Wonder if the pigs-feet eating contest was too much?

Shot and a jeer

How sad is it that a man like Ted Williams, who in life gave so much to the noble-caused "Jimmy Fund", must in death have his memory be subjected not only to a purgatory of Pop-sicle punch lines but now daughter Bobbie-Jo's public pleas for what will -- with its own measure of titters -- surely come to be known as the "Teddy Fund".

Steve Ziants can be reached at sziants@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1474.