7.16.00
TUCSON SIDEWINDERS vs LAS VEGAS STARS
A bunch of my pals were using our friend Franklin's trip to Tucson to do some recording with the guys from Calexico as an excuse to spend a week hanging around the Hotel Congress drinking three dollar margaritas, and coming off of the week I mentioned in the last installment, and considering that Friday morning I turned in an article that I'd been researching for the better part of two months, it didn't take much persuasion to get me to join them, for the weekend at least.
(You might be getting the impression that the work-reward paradigm plays a large role in my life. This would be an accurate impression.)
Following an afternoon of indulgent repose and a good, cheap Mexican-food dinner, we finally made it out to the ballpark around 7:30 for what we thought was a 7:00 game. As it turned out, though, the thundershowers of the afternoon before—which had drawn us, the barmaid, and seemingly everyone else on the block out onto the street for a glorious burst of drunken, rain-soaked merriment—had caused that evening's scheduled game to be postponed, so instead of being half an hour late, we'd actually arrived just in time to catch the end of the first game of a double-header. Weather in Tucson in July being what it is, the first game didn't start until six, and the games were both shortened, as we discovered when the Triple-A Padres affiliate Las Vegas Stars unexpectedly ran out onto the field congratulating one another after making the final out of the seventh inning. Okay, then.
Although it had the vaguely generic feel of any shared facility, Tucson Electric Field, home during the summer to the Diamondbacks' Triple-A Tucson Sidewinders, was nice enough, with free parking and $4.50 general admission seats that allow one to sit essentially anywhere past the halfway points to first and third bases. Its most distinctive features were a way-overactive sound effects guy (every foul ball: plonk…plonk…crash!), and a slightly odd preponderance of Italian-themed musical selections between innings (“That's Amore,” etc.), which none of us minded much because it served to make Franklin feel more at home at a sporting event than he might have otherwise.
The highlight of the night, however, was spotted warming up in the Stars' bullpen between games. Brendan Sullivan, a young right-hander from Washington, D.C., is that rarest of pitchers, a true submariner. Everyone's hot on Byung-Hyun Kim now, losing themselves in misty-eyed nostalgia for the days of Kent Tekulve, but I'm telling you, Sullivan makes those guys look like shot-putters. Sullivan's knuckles are gnarled and disfigured from scraping the mound with each delivery. The umpire has to toss out the dirt- and blood-spattered ball after every pitch, and the grounds crew has worn a path to the mound from constantly going out to smooth over the divots left by each wind-up. Okay, so I'm exaggerating a little. But I could not be more serious when I say that everyone reading this must hope/pray/rub beads together/petition Padres general manager Kevin Towers to get this guy to the show, because the world will be a measurably better place with Brendan Sullivan standing atop a major league hill every five days.
That he struggled with his control over two very long innings is of no consequence. It was all any hitter could do even to see the ball coming at him, let alone hit it out of the infield; Sullivan has been dominating at the lower levels, and will be again, it is certain. Of course, Sidewinder batters fared no better against Domingo Guzman, Dave Maurer, and Brandon Kolb in relief, who together combined for a one-hit shutout.
FINAL SCORE: STARS 4, SIDEWINDERS 1; STARS 1, SIDEWINDERS 0
MEMORABLE HECKLE: Kind of bush, and not all that funny, but the spirited bunch over by third base issuing ascending Whooooop! calls with every Las Vegas pitch, and descending Whoooooo!s with each subsequent toss back to the mound was about as good as it was going to get.
