RMJ 53 April 8

TUESDAY, APRIL 8 ● Atlanta, vs Braves

I checked the Atlanta paper this morning, and I learned that the Braves are 3-0 in their new ballpark, Turner Field. New parks tend to bring the best out in a team, for some reason. I recall the Cardinals winning in their first year at Busch; the Reds in their first year at Riverfront; the Orioles at Camden Yards; the Rockies at Coors; the Indians at Jacobs Field; and the Rangers at The Ballpark in Arlington.

Even in the old days, this was true. The Red Sox won the pennant their first year at Fenway, and the Yankees did the same thing at Yankee Stadium.

Luckily for us, no team in our division has a new stadium. If we get our funding proposal through the legislature in Austin, we will have a new park in the year 2000.

I don’t think I can last that long if we don’t win our division. If we win it this year, I will probably last long enough to represent the Astros in uniform at the new ballpark, just as I did in the Astrodome as an 18-year-old pitcher.

I got my TV set up in my room, and I looked at a tape of the Braves from our opening homestand. I was not able to glean anything that would give us a strategic advantage. Dennis Liborio will tape the game tonight, and I will come back to the hotel and review it.

 

I wasn’t able to call a meeting to discuss infield practice, because all the players were not close at hand before batting practice, and there wasn’t enough time after infield. Tomorrow I will have the meeting after BP.

My policy will be to post the times for BP and infield well before the game. I will ask all of the regular players to take infield at least once each series if they are not injured.

 

We hit a lot of balls out of the park in batting practice today. Unfortunately, Tom Glavine wasn’t throwing BP in the game; he was nipping corners, as usual. We managed to scrape out a few hits, but we scored no runs in seven innings off the crafty lefthander.

At this point, the Braves had only two runs off Mike Hampton. When Mike came into the dugout after the sixth, he was scheduled to be the third hitter. I told him he would bat if there were two outs and nobody on base. He was really pitching well, and I didn’t want him out of the game. Still, we had to find a way to get two runs.

We ended up with Brad Ausmus at first when the nine-spot in the order came up, and I pinch-hit with Ray Montgomery. Ray struck out, and we failed to score.

I brought Russ Springer in to pitch the bottom of the seventh. This strategy did not work out too well, as the Braves hit three hanging curveballs and took a 4-0 lead. This outburst supported my general theory that if a pitcher is throwing well, you should leave him in the game whenever it is possible. This time, it was impossible. If we had been tied, I would have let Hampton hit. But we were running out of baseball time, which is measured in outs.           

Mike Bielecki took over from Glavine in the top of the eighth. He is a good pitcher, but I was glad to see him instead of Glavine. So were the hitters.

We got two runs on a double by Gonzo. With one out, James Mouton came to the plate. The Braves had a lefty, Alan Embree, working in the bullpen. I had to decide whether I wanted Bielecki against Mouton and Johnson, or Embree against our lefthanded bats: Abreu, Howard, and Spiers. Embree can be wild, but our lefty hitters are not patient enough to draw many walks.

I didn’t think Bielecki was throwing his best, so I stayed with the righties, and they both made outs.

Springer pitched well in the eighth, and then came Mark Wohlers, throwing 98-99 MPH. He didn’t really need another pitch, but he had one: a forkball that was better than his heater. It came in at 89 MPH and took a nosedive just as it reached the hitting zone.

We lost the game 4-2 and the Braves remain undefeated in their new home.

 

After the game, Ryan Klesko and Kenny Lofton were in the outfield with a group of men in business attire. I suppose they were lighting engineers, because outfielders have been blinded by the lights in the early going.

I understand these lights are qualitatively different than those used in other stadia; they are designed for digital TV. This foreshadows something that I have feared as I have witnessed the proliferation in technological gimmicks in sports coverage. If they are unable to adjust the lights, we will finally have come to the point where television viewers are deemed more important than spectators.

 

There was an unusual rules play in this game. It came when Javy Lopez interfered with Brad Ausmus on a steal attempt with two outs in the inning.

Lopez was ruled out, and the inning was over. I went to talk with umpire Tom Hallion to see who was out: the batter or the runner. Another umpire, Larry Vanover, told me that the batter was out, and the next batter would lead off the next inning.

“What if there had not been two outs?” I asked.

“Then the batter and the runner would be out,” he told me.

This did not seem right to me, so I will need to get a clarification; I think the batter should be out and the runner should return to his original base.

I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.