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 Red Sox vs. Indians Sports Illustrated baseball writer Mark Bechtel reports on the Boston-Cleveland series
Posted: Friday October 02, 1998 02:05 PM
As anyone who has ever been in a big city can tell you, cabbies know everything. So Red Sox fans, take note: Boston's chances for re-signing free agent-to-be Mo Vaughn are slimmer than you thought. So says the fellow who drove me to the Cleveland airport yesterday. Seems he had just taken Vaughn's dad, who had been staying at my hotel, to the airport, and Mr. V made it pretty clear to him that there would be no mo' Mo in Boston once the playoffs are over. Vaughn's dad mentioned the Curse of the Bambino, then posited that Hubsters are now under the Curse of departed superstar Roger Clemens and that they would soon find themselves wallowing under the Curse of Mo Vaughn. Vaughn isn't gone yet, but Boston's hope of re-signing him economically took a beating Tuesday. Vaughn went 0-for-14 three years ago in his only previous playoff appearance, and another bad series might have driven his market value down. All Vaughn did in Game 1 against the Tribe was drive in seven runs and hit a pair of homers. So what sparked Vaughn's turnaround? In a word, discipline. Every Indians pitcher I spoke to agreed that the normally free-swinging Vaughn is showing more restraint at the plate than expected. Against Jaret Wright, for example, he fell behind 0-2. But then he laid off a fastball, a good changeup and a curveball—all of which were just barely out of the strike zone—to run the count full. On 3-2, Wright had to give Vaughn something he could handle—a fastball up and out over the plate—and Mo promptly spanked it the other way into the seats. After hitting Wright's 97 mph heater out, Vaughn showed he could hit the slow stuff too, raking a 73-mph Doug Jones changeup into the seats in left for his second three-run homer of the day. Big Mo had less luck in Game 2, as Doc Gooden struck him out on three nasty curves in the first inning. The K was the only thing that stood between Gooden and an ERA of infinity. It was the only out he got, thanks to home plate umpire Joe Brinkman, who squeezed Gooden, blew a call at the plate, then tossed Doc for kindly suggesting that the ump pay a bit more attention. Actually, Gooden yelled "Get into the f-----g game!" What the statement lacked in tact, it made up for in timeliness. For years, Brinkman has labored under the illusion that fans are paying money to see him umpire. His penchant for harboring grudges makes Michael Corleone look like Mother Teresa. He once vowed to eject Willie Wilson from any game he umpired, and after a spat with the late Royals skipper Dick Howser, Brinkman publicly question Howser's managerial abilities. (Brinkman said that Howser couldn't manage a house of ill repute on an army base.) Brinkman shouldn't have a chance to do much more damage. After two games, the two AL umpire crews switch series, so Brinkman is now down in Texas. And since he just did the plate, he will rotate out to right field for the next game he calls. Maybe some time out of the spotlight will allow Brinkman to take Gooden's advice and get into the, ahem, game.
* Games 1 and 2 in Cleveland were both played at 1 p.m. local time, which prompted something I had never seen before: people selling tickets in front of Jacobs Field. I've been to a fair number of Indians games, and never once had I seen someone trying to unload what are the hottest tickets in town. But with both games scheduled for midweek afternoons on short notice, a lot of fans couldn't find takers for extra tickets, which were actually going for face value.
* Indians manager Mike Hargrove got thrown out by Brinkman after Gooden's third pitch of Game 2, when he went to the mound ostensibly to settle his pitcher down. But his real motive was to get within earshot of Brinkman. Grover did the same thing in Game 1. Reliever Steve Reed got ahead of Damon Buford 0-2, then threw two pretty good pitches, which were both called balls by ump Dale Scott. Hargrove went out to the mound (usually pitching coach Mark Wiley visits Indians pitchers), said a few words to Reed, then waited for Scott to come out to the mound to tell him to move along. When Scott did, Hargrove let him have it, but Scott took it and Hargrove left the field without incident.
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