Off Wing Opinion

Man that ball got outta here in a hurry. I mean anything travels that far oughta have a damn stewardess on it, don't you think?

Kevin Costner as Crash Davis in Bull Durham

I wish I could tell you I saw the whole glorious top of the first inning of last night's All-Star Game. But Tuesday is weightlifting night, and combined with an absent-minded decision that put me on the Metro platform at Arlington Cemetary instead of on an Orange Line train streaking into the Virginia suburbs, I didn't make it home till almost 8:45 p.m.

Flicking on the television, I figured the game ought to be well into the second inning, so it was a joyous surprise to find the one baseball player I despise more than any other, Roger Clemens, still on the mound sweating it out, and in a 3-0 hole.

So, while I didn't get to see Clemens shake off a sign from Mike Piazza right before Manny Ramirez homered to spot the American League to that 3-0 lead. But I did get to see Clemens cruise a slider at the knees to the free-swinging Alfonso Soriano, a meatball of a pitch Clemens' former teammate swatted out of the park to make it 6-0.

And as I watched, I couldn't help but think, along with a number of others apparently, that it seemed strange that Clemens would experience the worst inning of his entire career while he was being caught by the one player with whom he has had the most interesting public feud.

Perhaps Piazza was channelling the spirit of Crash Davis?

Tom Boswell thought about it. So did Mike Vaccaro. And John Heyman too.

Now, the consensus seems to be that Piazza is too much of a professional to ever suffer a minor ethical lapse like that one. Besides, isn't it more fun to realize that Clemens just got his head beaten in all on his own, rather than as the result of sabotage?

I should have set the TiVo to record -- this is a memory I'm going to treasure for a long, long time.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 14th, 2004 at 6:26 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.