5.16.02 ROCHESTER RED WINGS vs DURHAM BULLS
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Half-way into May already and I haven’t seen a game since the second. There’s
a simple explanation. In exchange for our absurdly mild winter, we the people
of Rochester have been slapped with three months of March. And while I will
once more go down on record as saying that having to listen to Rochesterians
bitch about the weather is endlessly more annoying than the weather itself,
I gotta say, this shit’s getting real old. Forty degrees, in the middle of
May? What’s up with that?
Tonight was a rainy but reasonably warm Thursday, and a look at the forecast—which
called for a dry but cold-again weekend—made it clear that this was our
window. I mean, you can get out of the rain.
The 2002 Red Wings have turned out to be a curious team. They’re perfectly
likable, and player by player, they’re actually quite good. Team captain
Howie Clark is a sentimental favorite, a returning Red Wing and the kind of
guy whose particular talent vs. guts coordinates result in that rarest of
things nowadays: the minor league star. Not a star in the sense that he’s
going anywhere, though, because he’s not: that description must be reserved
for guys like second baseman Brian Roberts and outfielder Larry Bigbie, each
of whom saw some time in Baltimore last year and each of whom is tearing it
up this year, Bigbie with spectacular defense and a .350-plus batting average
and Roberts as quite possibly the best lead-off man in the International League.
Add to that the capable veteran Ryan McGuire at first, Jose Leon tending the
hot corner, spry outfielders Darryl Brinkley and Luis Garcia, an undeniably
talented rotation and a clubhouse atmosphere that from all outward appearances
would seem not at all to resemble last year’s—personified by fat
malcontent Calvin Pickering, who, incidentally, showed up for Red Sox camp
this spring overweight and out of shape and within a week had suffered a season-ending
torn quad—put it all together, and one would expect the Red Wings to
be in the hunt. I certainly did.
And that’s the curious thing. Even with all this talent and character, the
2002 Rochester Red Wings still completely suck.
After a promising start, the Wings have been losing everywhere. Most disconcertingly,
though, they’ve been losing at home, consistently, and to inferior teams.
It’s hard to say exactly what’s going on.
Tonight we got a great one, though, and perhaps it might signal a turned
corner of sorts. The opener of a four-game series against the first-place
Durham Bulls went 11 long and very wet innings, and in the bottom of that
eleventh, trailing by two runs, the Red Wings rallied to take the win.
Steve Bechler, a strapping 22-year-old righthander, started for the Wings,
and it was the fifth inning before he managed to get three outs without putting
a runner at third base. Those runners scored in the first and fourth, the
latter on a two-run homer by catcher Paul Hoover. The Red Wings kept pace,
however, scoring once in the first on a Brinkley sac fly, twice in the second
on a two-run double by the recently returned Eddy Garabito—he spent spring
in the Dominican waiting to get his visa stamped—and again in the fifth
on a Ryan McGuire solo shot, all coming off Bulls starter Carlos Chantres.
The Bulls eked out runs in the seventh and eighth, though, catcher Wilmy
Caceres scoring on a ground out in the former and second baseman Andy Sheets
coming home on a sacrifice fly an inning later, giving the visitors a 5–4
lead. In the bottom of the eighth, the Red Wings responded in kind, when right
fielder Clark came through with a clutch bases-loaded double to put the Wings
ahead going into the ninth.
By which time, thanks to the late hour and light but steady rain that had
been falling since about the fourth inning, the crowd had dwindled to a very
few dedicated Red Wings fans. We sat high up under the roof down the right
field line, cozy and dry, watching the game as if from the safety of a parapet,
invulnerable, gazing down at the distant battle below. Rafael Pina, working
his third inning of relief, quickly secured two outs but couldn’t get past
Bulls left fielder Carl Crawford, who ripped one through the gap to right
and stole second a pitch later. First baseman Aubry Huff, 0-for-4 at that
point, then doubled him in to tie the game. Nothing was going to come easy
tonight, that much was clear.
The Red Wings challenged in the ninth when Luis Garcia hit a two-out double
of his own, but the rally was doused when Bulls center fielder Damian Rolls
made a breathtaking play to rob Mike Hubbard of what would’ve been a game-winning
line drive.
The tenth went quietly, marked only by another beautiful, diving catch by
the athletic Rolls. It was the eleventh when things got crazy. Bulls right
fielder Ryan Freel doubled off Yorkis Perez to start the inning, and, after
Rolls struck out, advanced to third on Crawford’s third hit of the night.
Huff then drew a walk, loading the bases for Sheets, who might be the bitterest
man in baseball, considering that just three seasons removed from playing
in the World Series for San Diego he’s now a Durham Bull—shorthand
for “not good enough to be a Devil Ray.” In any case, given the
triple and three singles that resulted from his first four plate appearances,
it was apparent that he was plenty motivated tonight. What followed was an
official scorer’s nightmare.
Sheets grounded to McGuire at first, who fired home to force Freel. Wings
catcher Fernando Lunar, who’d been clipped on the hand a couple at bats earlier
but had stayed in the game, then threw wildly past first trying to turn the
double-play. Charging in from right field, Clark scooped up the ball and threw
to McGuire, who quickly relayed it to Roberts at second in time to catch the
sliding Sheets for out number three. When the dust had settled, though, two
runs were in, and the Red Wings went to the bottom of the eleventh trailing
by a deuce.
After Clark grounded to short for the first out, the prevailing mood among
the fifty or so remaining spectators was a clear and abiding readiness to
call it a night. Great game and all, but you know. For better or worse, though,
the Red Wings weren’t giving up so quickly. Darryl Brinkley singled up the
middle, and McGuire to right moments later. Hedging his bets, manager Andy
Etchebarren brought in speedy Larry Bigbie, back tonight from a shoulder injury-related
stint on the DL, to run for McGuire. As it turned out, it wouldn’t make any
difference.
Jose Leon belted one to deepest right center, good for a triple. Tie
game, winning run ninety feet away, Luis Garcia coming to the plate. The crowd—the
“crowd”—came to its feet. A plea. Ferchrissakes, Garcia, end
it, will you?
“It was a curveball,” Garcia was quoted as saying in the paper
the next morning of the pitch from Bulls reliever Travis Phelps. “Once
I hit it, I knew it.”
On the way out, the ballpark staff personally thanking each and every departing
fan for sticking it out, a guy who I’m almost certain was the Red Wings’
absurdly young-looking general manager, Dan Mason, pointed to my hat and said,
“Hey! Hanshin Tigers! I got one just like it at home!”
How can I not like the Red Wings? I can’t.
FINAL SCORE: RED WINGS 9, BULLS 8
LIFE DURING WARTIME: The local Episcopalian marching band performed a rousing national anthem, contributing further to my already heady admiration for Episcopalians (they’ve got those great-looking flags, you know). The capper, though, came when they reached the anthem’s finale, whereupon a fifteen-foot-high Episcopalian-blue cross was raised in the middle of center field, emblazoned in red with the words “God loves you.” Wow.