the greatest

Yesterday afternoon I was at the new Yankee Stadium watching the Yankees beat the Oakland Athletics, but my thoughts were in Cooperstown, New York, where my favourite player of all time, Rickey Henderson, was being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

No one played the game with as much gusto or bravado as Rickey. And no one ever referred to himself in the third person as much as Rickey. Besides his many achievements, he probably holds the record for the most head-first dives as well. We should all live our lives with as much reckless joy as Rickey Henderson, the greatest.

a gap in the rules of Major League Baseball

I have reached the limit of my baseball knowledge and must ask the help of my readers in resolving a bothersome question. In last night's game at Yankee Stadium between the Yankees and the Baltimore Orioles, a play occurred that I cannot figure out what to call. It was the top of the eighth inning with two outs and a runner on third base with Baltimore's Brian Roberts at bat and New York's Phil Coke pitching. Coke threw a wild pitch past catcher Jose Molina. Roberts ran home, Molina retrieved the ball and tossed it to Coke who was covering home plate, and Roberts was tagged out by Coke. As a defensive play, it's simple: catcher to pitcher, 2-1. But what is the action of the runner called?

Let's start by figuring out what the play was not. First of all, Coke's wild pitch was not scored a wild pitch because there was a putout on the play. (The same holds true for errors without adverse consequences for the team on defense: if the first baseman drops a fly ball but gets the batter out at first base anyway, no error is charged.) Second, the runner's action cannot be ruled caught stealing because attempting to steal on a wild pitch is not an attempt to steal.

ESPN's detailed play-by-play summary of the game refers to the play this way: 'B Roberts out at home on runner's fielder's choice.' What the hell is a 'runner's fielder's choice'? How can there be a fielder's choice when the ball was not put in play by a batter? My search last night, via Google, of the phrase 'runner's fielder's choice' yielded 166,000 hits, several of which were people asking, what the hell is a runner's fielder's choice?

That leaves me with two questions:

1. How would you name the runner's play?

2. Do you accept the term 'runner's fielder's choice', and, if so, what does it mean?

Many thanks to anyone who has insights about these important matters.

Update: I have corrected an error in my description of the play.

baseball, too?

As I watched Wednesday's hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I was stunned by what I saw. There was Roger Clemens, one of baseball's greatest pitchers of all time, implausibly denying accounts that he had used steroids and human growth hormone. And two seats to his right there was Brian McNamee admitting that he had supplied the substances to Clemens. What stunned me was not the charges or Clemens's denials but, rather, the conduct of the Republicans on the committee. Were they really turning steroids into a partisan issue?

Almost without exception, the Republicans on the panel embarassed themselves by one-sidedly praising Clemens, the accused steroid-taker, and attacking McNamee, the admitted steroid-supplier. Here is Representative Dan Burton, Republican of Indiana, questioning McNamee:

'You know, Roger Clemens, unless it's proven that he used steroids—and so far I haven't seen anything like it, if he did, he ought to be held accountable. But Roger Clemens is a baseball—he's a titan in baseball. And you and with all these lies, if they're not true, are destroying him and his reputation. Now how does he get his reputation back if this is not true? And how can we believe you because you've lied and lied and lied and lied?'

Yes, that's the same Dan Burton who promoted the conspiracy theory that Vince Foster was murdered back in the Clinton years.

Alarm bells should have gone off when Clemens said this in his opening statement:

'I have had thousands of calls, e-mails from friends, working partners, teammates, fans, and men that have held the highest office in our country telling me to stand strong.'

If we take him literally, and we should, he meant that some plural number of U.S. presidents have, amidst his accusations of illegal conduct, called to offer their support. Later in the hearing, Clemens brought up his presidential support a second time:

'When all this happened, the former President of the United States found me in a deer blind in south Texas and expressed his concerns, that this was unbelievable, and to stay strong and keep your—hold your head up high.'

Lest there be any doubt about which presidents went to bat for the Texas native, the New York Times for February 15 quoted Representative Mark Souder, Republican of Indiana, as saying:

'It wasn't an accident that word got to me that he's a Republican, or he said that President Bush called him.'

Clemens has not been charged with a crime, but the facts against him are considerable: other players accused by McNamee have confessed; one such player, Andy Pettitte, said in a sworn deposition that Clemens told him of his steroid and hormone use; and Clemens admits that his wife was injected with HGH by McNamee.

My point here is not Clemens's guilt or innocence. It's the dual obscenity of the partisanship shown by the committee's Republicans and the conduct of the Bush family. Apparently, if one is a friend of the Bushes, one is entitled to the support of the entire Republican team without being seriously questioned, no matter the accusations or the strength of the evidence.

What makes this incident even more offensive is that the Bushes are supposedly baseball fans. Bush père played at Yale and roots for the Houston Astros. Bush fils owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before running for governor. Why would they tell their cronies on the committee to go soft on a player accused of sullying the game? I knew that George W. Bush had no respect for the rule of law, but I did not know that he had no respect for the rules of baseball either.