The final out.

The New Yorker’s Roger Angell even mentions the flow in a blog entry about the game:

Pitching his no-hit, 4–0 masterpiece against the Cincinnati Reds last night, the Phillies’ ace Roy Halladay restored the smoothing, almost symphonic sense of pleasure that lies within the spare numbers and waiting possibilities of every ballgame. Even from a distance, at home again in your squalid living-room loge, you felt something special this time about the flow of pitches, balls and (mostly) strikes, the inexorably approaching twenty-seventh man retired ...

And of course the Philly fans were deeply engaged throughout the game. In the later innings, each strike was cheered, and Reds batters received hearty, cascading boos each time they asked for time to try to disrupt Halladay’s rhythm.

This guy brought the right sign to the game.

The remainder of the post-season will have to be pretty remarkable to out-shine this unique achievement. (And I personally hope that the Giants are up for it).

All this time, I thought the best thing about Oscar Gamble was his epic afro. But now I’ve learned that the title of this post is said to have originated from Gamble during a discussion of the 1975 Yankees; those were the early days of George Steinbrenner’s tenure, and the first of Billy Martin’s five managerial stints. And yeah, Gamble’s assessment sounds about right to me. (I first saw it in the comments section of an excellent post by Joe Posnanski, which is worth reading for the wealth of sports quotes).

You autograph photos of yourself using Robin Ventura’s head as a speedbag. And, they sell for $100 each on ebay.

As a kid growing up in Oakland, my heroes were Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Reggie Jackson. What about that Reggie Jackson? I stand outside the ballpark in the parking lot, waiting for Reggie Jackson to give me an autograph ... I said, ‘Reggie, can I have an autograph.’ He would pass me a pen, with his name on it.

The best part is that Jackson is sitting behind him, cracking up, along with Robin Yount and various other living legends. You can watch the whole thing, in three parts, on YouTube: Part 1 has some awesome commentary by Tony Gwynn and Torii Hunter; Part 2 is the beginning of Rickey’s speech; Part 3 is the conclusion.

• 2008: Joakim Soria named, pitched one and two-thirds innings of scoreless relief.
• 2007: Gil Meche named, did not play.
• 2006: Mark Redman named, did not play.
• 2005: Mike Sweeney named, struck out as a pinch-hitter in the 7th.
• 2004: Ken Harvey named, struck out as a pinch-hitter in the 3rd.
• 2003: Mike MacDougal and Sweeney named, neither appeared.
• 2002: Mike Sweeney named, replaced Paul Konerko at 1B in the 7th inning, flied out to right in the 9th inning.
• 2001: Mike Sweeney named, replaced Jason Giambi at first in the 8th inning, flied out to right in the 8th inning.
• 2000: Jermaine Dye voted to start, Mike Sweeney named. Sweeney pinch-hit for James Baldwin in the 4th, reaching on an error. Sweeney did not appear in the field. Dye walked once and struck out.

Yeah, not so illustrious.

Hard to believe that this was 30 years ago, but here’s some excellent local news footage of a notorious moment in baseball history: the White Sox ill-fated “Disco Demolition” promotion. In the end, Comiskey Park descended into a riot after a Chicago DJ exploded a crate full of disco records in the middle of the field between games of a double-header. The NYT has a nice chronicle of the unfolding disaster:

[Mike] Veeck, [son of the White Sox owner], ordered yellow-jacketed guards to go outside to stop fans from crashing the gates.

That allowed the spectators inside the ballpark to storm the field without much resistance. Jack Morris, a Tigers pitcher, recalled “whiskey bottles were flying over our dugout” after Detroit won the first game, 4–1.

Then Dahl blew up the records.

“And then all hell broke loose,” Morris said. “They charged the field and started tearing up the pitching rubber and the dirt. They took the bases. They started digging out home plate.“

Watch for Greg Gumbel in the footage above; he was a sportscaster for a Chicago-area station.

So, on Tuesday, August 7, I rode my bike to AT&T Park, hoping to get lucky and figuring that I wouldn’t. Immediately, I got really lucky, scoring an amazing ticket in the club level (a $70 value) for the price of two AT&T Park beers. At that moment, I had a good feeling. A couple of hours later, Bonds faced a 3–2 count, and I decided to join 45,000+ other fans in pointing my digital camera at the plate. Up to that point, I made sarcastic remarks about mediating the experience in that way. Now I’m posting my crappy version on the Internet. Why? I don’t know. Anyway, a moment later, Bonds drilled the pitch into deep, deep center field and the stranger next to me grabbed my arm and started jumping up and down.

Here’s the video that I shot with my digital camera. (Warning: It’s bad. And bouncy).

For the next five minutes, I high-fived a lot of people, and someone gave me a hug as I was filming the celebrations. Fireworks exploded over McCovey Cove; streamers rained down; the Nationals left the field; Hank Aaron congratulated Bonds asynchronously through a pre-recorded video. It was surreal, but festive and exciting.

Of course, there was also a weird vibe. People seemed to feel personally gratified that they got to witness history, but few seemed really, truly happy for Bonds. Few people said: “Wow, good for Bonds.” Those who did were either people who possessed amazing capacities for forgiveness and seemed genuinely happy, or younger guys with way too much bitterness who saw Bonds as a kindred spirit. The rest of us said: “Wow. I can’t believe I saw that. Wow. This is really weird.”

After hitting the home run, Bonds left the game. It was the 5th inning, and the Giants had a 5–4 lead; the Nationals came back and won. My question: Who does that? Hank Aaron? No. Dimaggio? Never. Ted Williams? God no. Sort of a perfect ending to a conflicted, surreal night.

After all my trash talk about Bonds and how he should just fess up to the roids, I saw him hit a dinger last Saturday, and I actually cheered. Like, I stood up as it left the bat, and maybe even jumped in the air when it went out, all the while clapping my hands. It was irresistible. He hit the thing a mile. It was awesome.

My friends and I had an entire left-field section to ourselves, and the Metrodome’s infamous acoustics combined with the absence of people provided my friend Adlai with a rare opportunity to ensure that Twins fan favorite Dan Gladden heard his every comment about his mullet. It also afforded us an opportunity to hear Kirby clowning around with people in the center field bleachers. At that point, no one could argue that Puck was anything but a great guy. He was fun; the Twins were good; the Twins infamously fair-weather fans didn’t really seem to appreciate him at that moment, but he didn’t let it get to him.

A little over a year later, his heroics would propel the Twins to another World Series championship, and his leaping Game 6 catch, combined with the game-winning dinger, would comprise one of the great all-time clutch performances. Everything after that seemed out of character.

[1] At this point, this seems even more remarkable than it did then. Seriously, who else is going to pull that off? Todd Helton in 2011? Maybe, but not likely.

Anyway, over the past couple of days, I tore through Game of Shadows, the recently published steroids expose by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams. After a month of PR build-up and published excerpts, there weren’t many surprises:

• Bonds availed himself of steroids. One might say, a buttload of steroids.
• So did Marion Jones.
• They’re both liars.
• So are a lot of professional athletes.

Bonds is the big story in Game of Shadows. If you couldn’t already tell by his cartoonishly swollen neck/head and his late-career power explosion, Bonds hasn’t been playing fair. He admitted to a grand jury that he allowed his trainer (a known juicer) to place droplets of an “unknown” chemical under his tongue, and to rub an “unknown” cream on his joints. Bonds thought that these were legal supplements — the drops were “flaxseed oil” — yeah, he actually said that — and he implied that he’d never injected anything. Uh-huh, yeah. I’m a fan of the flaxseed oil, and I can testify that it doesn’t make your head become like 5x bigger. Plus, Bonds has always been a control freak. Is it even remotely possible that he didn’t bother finding out what his trainer was sticking in his mouth?

The book reveals the Bonds was on a steroid regimen that included more than “flaxseed oil,” making it seem even more likely that Bonds perjured himself in front of the grand jury. Sources close to him indicate that he was on all sorts of injectable crap, including Decadurabolin (in the butt) and human growth hormone (in the stomach). He wanted us to believe that it was all free weights and sprints and vitamins, but it makes a little more sense that there was some secret sauce in the mix.

A personal note: Barry, dude, seriously. Just freakin admit it. You’re like a little kid sitting in a pile of cookie crumbs, crying and claiming that you didn’t eat any cookies. It’s undignified, really. Say “I took steroids because I wanted to win, because everyone else was, because it’s what I had to do.” Fans understand competitiveness, and you’re a competitive guy, and steroids weren’t against the rules anyway. So just fess up, you big baby. At some point, you could even ask for our forgiveness. I mean, it’s possible. You always claim that you’re not given the respect you deserve. Here’s your chance to earn it.

• Three beers apiece for my co-workers – While high-fives among teammates are being exchanged. Derivation: Shawshank Redemption
• What’s on the grill? — Punctuates the moment when someone, usually Dwayne Wade, dunks in someone else’s face, i.e. “Jason Collins, what’s on the grill?”
• Pay for my dry cleaning! — Accentuated a Vince-Carter-administered NBA playoff dunk. Derivation: SNL
• Bartender! Johnny Walker Red. — Highlight involving the Cincinnati Reds.
• _____ has powers comparable to Wonderboy! — Fill in the blank with any player who is about to do something amazing in the highlight reel. Derivation: Tenacious D.
• That’s levitation, homes. — Dunk that could otherwise be described with the words “helicopter,” “windmill,” or “tomahawk,” or any dunk by Vince Carter or Andre Igoudala in the month of December 2005. Derivation: Tenacious D.
• Bartender! Canadian Club. — used in conjunction with the Blue Jays, Raptors, or any Canadian NHL team.
• Get to the chopper! — Variously applied, e.g. Albert Pujols has just hammered the crap out of the ball and is beginning to trot around the bases; Ben Wallace has completely plastered an opponent’s dunk attempt and is sprinting back downcourt, where he receives an alley-oop from Chauncey Billups and throws it down in some guy’s face; Julius Peppers has just sprinted 20 yards in approximately 1.5 seconds in order to light up a quarterback. Derivation: Predator
• Bartender! Shot of Jack. — This, I think, was the original “Bartender” exclamation. Usually used in connection with a homerun.
• Bartender! Cuba Libre — Introducing any story involving Cuba during the World Baseball Classic.
• Kill me, I’m here! — General exclamation. I’ve only heard this one once, and it accompanied a hockey highlight. Derivation: Predator
• That’s it and that’s all. — Usually to punctuate a player’s execution of a coup de grace, e.g. “Allen Iverson’s three in the closing seconds puts the Sixers up for good. That’s it and that’s all.” Derivation: Lil Sis
• (Always in progress)

With the exception of the Pete Rose affair, history has ruled that only two things matter when it comes to HOF criteria: statistical milestones and World Series rings. And for Rose, all would likely be forgiven if he would suck it up and apologize.

In another few years, we’ll add some more characters to the Hall’s rogue gallery — the juicers. One of them will be Rafael Palmeiro, who testified before Congress that he had never taken steroids. Palmeiro punctuated his testimony with finger-jabs at the assembled Congresspeople, a gesture that now seems oddly similar to the technique used by Jose Canseco to inject steroids into Palmeiro’s butt. Yesterday, Palmeiro was exposed as a juicer, and the NYT reported that he used the real stuff rather than some super-charged multi-vitamin:

Palmeiro said Monday that he had never intentionally taken steroids, but stanozolol does not come in dietary supplements and is among the most popular steroids on the market. It can be ingested or injected and usually remains in a person’s system for at least a month.

“It’s a mildly strong to strong steroid,” said Dr. Gary Wadler, a professor at New York University who is an expert in sports doping. “Potent is the word I would use.”

Palmeiro will be joined by at least three other juicers in the Hall: McGwire, Bonds and Sosa. I don’t begrudge these guys. They definitely weren’t the only juicers in the game, and they would have been great players without the 900-foot moon-shots. On the other hand, I think that the Hall should find a way to express and interpret the unsavory side of baseball: Induct Raffy and rest (Rose, especially), and set up a section of that constructively discusses and contextualizes the behaviors and achievements of those players who sought extra-curricular assistance.

Baseball’s good guys probably don’t lose any sleep over this, but I still think that the Hall should find a way to distinguish guys like Robin Yount & Mike Schmidt (and in the future, Greg Maddux & Tony Gwynn). They deserve to be recognized as fair players in times when players sought unfair advantages.