Good morning, all. I hope your week is off to a terrific start.
I do not know about starts, but I witnessed one of the weirdest endings to a baseball game, broadcasting the Hartford Yard Goats at Akron RubberDucks Friday night. The Yard Goats are the AA affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. The RubberDucks are the AA affiliate of the Cleveland Guardians. I can honestly write, that in the 40 years I have broadcast professional baseball, or for that matter watched baseball, I have never witnessed a game ending in this fashion.
Hartford took a 3-2 lead to the last of the ninth, when Akron’s first two batters reached on a walk and dropped fly ball. A fly ball failed to advance the runners, but a sharp single to left loaded the bases. After a sacrifice fly tied the game and the remaining runners advanced a base, Yard Goats manager Chris Denorfia ordered the next batter intentionally walked, hoping to set up a force at any base for the third out and send the game into extra innings. That’s when things got dicey.
Home plate umpire and crew chief Tyler Wittie initially ruled that Gabriel Rodriguez foul-tipped a pitch, then called time. He wanted to confer with base umpires Ethan Gorsak and Austin Snow. After about 60 seconds, the umpiring trio started walking toward the Yard Goats dugout on the first base side, not a good sign if you were Hartford. Wittie proceeded to tell Denorfia that Rodriguez was actually hit by the pitch, bringing an end to the game. To say Denorfia was the unhappiest man in Ohio would be an understatement. The usually mild-mannered skipper could be heard back in Hartford, and his reaction led to Wittie ejecting him from a game that had already concluded.
At the major league level, a play of that kind would have been reviewable but there are no video reviews in the minors. Someday, maybe, but not now. There is no telling what Rodriguez would have done had the initial call stood, but the reversal changed the outcome and brought a rare ending to a baseball game.
Remember Lew Ford?
Before there was the Hartford Yard Goats there was the New Britain Rock Cats and one of the Rock Cats fan favorites was Lew Ford. I read the other day where Ford, now 46, is playing professional baseball as player-coach on the Atlantic League’s Long Island Ducks.
Ford played six seasons in the majors with the Minnesota Twins and Baltimore Orioles. He compiled a .268 average and hit 35 home runs in 1585 at bats. Respectable numbers.
Ford has collected 2,533 hits in professional baseball games, including four home runs in one game. On a Sunday afternoon in late August of 2001, Ford slugged four home runs at Binghamton, against the Mets affiliate. The Rock Cats slugged a franchise-record eight home runs in the game, routing Binghamton, 13-5. Michael Cuddyer, who had a productive big league career with Minnesota, Colorado and the Mets, also homered in the game, which featured a bench-clearing brawl.
“I was just trying to go up there and hit the ball real hard and I had that swing that puts a little loft on the ball,” Ford told reporter Ken Lipshez, about his historic day.
Some 22 years later, Ford keeps swinging away. Hopefully some of those balls still have loft and are leaving the ball park.
Viktor Hovland to the rescue
If you follow the PGA Tour, then how can you not like Viktor Hovland, the 25-year-old Norwegian professional golfer by way of Oklahoma State University? Hovland rallied to notch his fourth PGA Tour victory on Sunday, the Jack Nicklaus-hosted Memorial Tournament in Dublin, OH. Hovland, with slightly more than $18M in career tour earnings before the tourney, snagged a hefty $3.6M first prize by beating Denny McCarthy in sudden death. So how did he celebrate? He served as caddie for his college roommate Zach Bauchou, who was competing in one of 10 U.S. Open final qualifiers held throughout the country on Monday.
Hovland did not have to go too far. The qualifier was held in nearby Columbus. Bauchou had asked Hovland if he would caddie for him, when the two had dinner last Tuesday. Hovland kept his promise, despite the hectic post-event activities that usually surround a tournament winner. His good deed on Monday is just another reason to like Viktor Hovland.
That is it for this week’s newsletter. As always, thank you for subscribing and have a terrific week.
SPORTSCASTER DAN