A Favorite Baseball Anecdote

Following the agony of the latest SF Giants defeat (another blown save) — the Giants had the best record in either league the first half of this season; for no apparent reason, they have the worst record in either league the second half of this season — I’ve given up baseball for the year.

So, it seems like an appropriate time to share my favorite baseball anecdote. It involves an incident I saw on a  Giants broadcast a few years ago.

One of the players, with a full count (3 balls and 2 strikes, for you nonbaseball fans), fouled a fastball. The foul hit the back of the plate and ricocheted up, nailing the opposing catcher directly in the ‘nads. He went rigid, toppled over, and lay there unmoving, in agony.

There was dead silence for maybe 15 seconds.

Then the Giants’ play-by-play man, Duane Kuiper, who in hindsight had obviously been thinking it over and decided he could get away with it, slowly and deliberately said, “One strike, two balls.”