SEATTLE — The Shark is an adventurous eater. He drank snake blood at a night market in Taiwan a few years back, and when his cousins offered him a cut of cured python this week, he couldn’t resist. He brought a platter of python jerky to the clubhouse at Safeco Field.
“Anthony Bourdain is in San Francisco,” Mark Melancon said. “I thought I’d be his Seattle rep.”
Melancon, the Pirates closer, is savoring what might be his final season in Pittsburgh. Entering a weekend series in Oakland, he had a 1.48 ERA and 22 saves, with no earned runs on his tab over his previous 16 outings. He likely is destined for his third appearance in the All-Star Game.
This snake bit was a hit in the clubhouse. Melancon guessed half his teammates tried it. Francisco Cervelli gnawed on a strip of the smoked jerky as he hustled out to run sprints in the outfield. Jared Hughes couldn’t believe Melancon had brought it in. Where had he gotten it, again?
The story Melancon stuck to was that his cousins live in the woods at the base of Mount Baker, two hours north of Seattle. He acted as if his cousin, Jay, had snared and seasoned the Northwestern carpet python himself, but a cursory search shows the snake is native to Australia, not Washington.
When details of his story were doubted, Melancon laughed, shrugged and laughed some more.
“Come on, I’ll get you some,” he said. “Not bad, right? Jerky can make anything good.”
When Melancon wasn’t peddling python, he spent his week glued to TV and Twitter for updates on his beloved Arizona Wildcats. They advanced to the best-of-three final of the College World Series and endured a win, a loss and a rainout before losing to Coastal Carolina Thursday in the finale.
The Wildcats reached the second round of the College World Series in 2004, Melancon’s freshman season. Along the winding route there, he met his future wife. Arizona’s regional round was held in South Bend, Ind. One of Melancon’s former classmates from Golden High School in Colorado was a student at Notre Dame and introduced Melancon to her roommate, Mary Catherine Cimino. She was from Omaha, Neb., the host city of the CWS.
“We ended up making it to Omaha,” Melancon said, “so that created a follow-up phone call.”
Mary Catherine was still in South Bend for the tournament, but her family stopped by Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium to meet Melancon. The couple started dating a year later, if Melancon’s mental math is right, and now are married and have three children. Mary Catherine’s sister, Christine, is married to Chicago White Sox outfielder J.B. Shuck. The Cimino sisters went to high school with Cassie Kleinsmith, who is married to Tony Watson, the Pirates set-up man.
When Melancon’s Wildcats squared off in the College World Series semifinals against Oklahoma State, Jordy Mercer’s alma mater, the game was shown on the PNC Park big screen while the Pirates took batting practice. Melancon said former Wildcats coach Andy Lopez, who retired last season, was the single most pivotal person in his baseball career.
“College in general helped me grow up and mature as a man,” he said. “The first time being on your own fully, having to do your own laundry, cook for yourself. It was a blast. I wouldn’t change anything. I really valued my time at the University of Arizona. Loved it. I miss being in Tucson sometimes.”
Young Clint: What would he have done?
For some reason, manager Clint Hurdle thought this was the year hitters would start fighting back against the infield shift. Reports fly around every spring training that certain players are bunting or starting to hit to all fields, but come game time they’re just as pull-happy as ever.
“They am what they am,” Hurdle said recently, parroting Popeye. “The only way the tide is going to turn and the shift is going to change is when hitters punch back, when the barrel becomes their friend again and they learn how to hit balls hard where they’re pitched.”
It would take a stubborn slugger swallowing his pride to lay down a bunt to beat the shift. Back in his playing days, Hurdle admitted, he probably wouldn’t have bunted either. During particularly poor stretches, he supposed his scouting report was as simple as this: “Don’t walk him, and bunch everybody around the mound. He’s not doing real well.”
“There was a time I was a great 4-3 guy,” Hurdle added. “I could take every pitch and roll over to second and get thrown out by a step and a half. Then there were times I could spray the ball around. All depended on the day of the week.”
Stephen J. Nesbitt: snesbitt@post-gazette.com and Twitter @stephenjnesbitt.
First Published: July 3, 2016, 4:12 a.m.
