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May 4, 2006

Schrodinger's Bat

Beautiful Theories and Ugly Facts

by Dan Fox

“The great tragedy of Science--the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”
--British biologist Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895)

On April 22nd, Rockies setup man Jose Mesa drilled Giants shortstop Omar Vizquel in the back with his first pitch. The next day, Giants starter Matt Morris hit both Matt Holliday and Eli Marrero in the first eight pitches he threw and was tossed from the game, along with manager Felipe Alou and pitching coach Dave Righetti. That was followed by the customary warnings to both teams, in observance of the practice that Major League baseball adopted in 1994.

Later in the game, Jeff Francis hit Steve Finley and was not ejected, much to the consternation of what was left of the Giants coaching staff. Of course, under the double warning rule, the umpires still have discretion over whether to eject a pitcher after the warnings have been issued; a discretion that yours truly thinks is not exercised nearly as often as it should be. Finally, Ray King plunked Vizquel again in the 8th, and was ejected along with Rockies skipper Clint Hurdle.

The Mesa/Vizquel feud dates back to 1998, when the two were still teammates with the Indians and Vizquel celebrated a spring training home run off of Mesa by doing a cartwheel afterwards. Things went downhill after the 2002 publication of Vizquel’s book Omar! My Life On and Off the Field, wherein Vizquel said of Mesa’s performance in Game Seven of the 1997 World Series:

"The eyes of the world were focused on every move we made. Unfortunately, Jose's own eyes were vacant. Completely empty. Nobody home. You could almost see right through him. Not long after I looked into his vacant eyes, he blew the save and the Marlins tied the game.”

Well, at least no one can accuse Vizquel of being the model teammate.