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Awed by Camden Yards, Rick Sutcliffe Started It All With a Shutout
Rick Sutcliffe knew better than to pitch in the rugged American League East. As a 35-year-old free agent in the winter before the 1992 season, coming off two seasons marred by injuries, Sutcliffe did not see himself as a Baltimore Oriole. Then he visited a construction site.
Sutcliffe had traveled to Baltimore as a favor to the Orioles’ manager, Johnny Oates, who had caught him with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1979, when Sutcliffe was the National League rookie of the year. Five years later, when Sutcliffe won the N.L. Cy Young Award with the Chicago Cubs, he relied on scouting reports from Oates, the Cubs’ bullpen coach.
So when Oates asked Sutcliffe to visit the new ballpark rising beside a warehouse in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, Sutcliffe agreed out of friendship. He stayed out of wonder.
“We’re talking and Johnny says, ‘Come on, I want to show you something,’” Sutcliffe said recently in New York, before calling a game for ESPN. “He walked me out to the mound and said: ‘Take a look around. Look down there, doesn’t that look like Wrigley? Look over there, doesn’t that look like Fenway? Look at how all the seats point. I’m telling you: You’re gonna throw the first pitch ever in this ballpark.’
“I’m getting goose bumps right now, and it hit me then. I walked off the mound, and I went to my agent and I said: ‘Get a one-year deal done. I’m not gonna stay long, but I want to do it.’”
Sutcliffe was in Baltimore this weekend, with other members of the 1992 team, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the jewel that touched off a revolution in stadium building. Fans were charmed by its old-fashioned touches, modern amenities and downtown location, and other teams clamored for their own versions to replace the circular, multipurpose facilities that rose in the 1960s and ’70s.
Sutcliffe started it all with one of his finest performances: a five-hit, 2-0 shutout of the Cleveland Indians. He took the mound on opening day despite having resisted the honor in spring training, when he realized he was not the ace of his new team.
“Johnny, we made a mistake: Mike Mussina’s better than me. You need to pitch him opening day,” Sutcliffe said he told Oates. “And he goes: ‘Ben McDonald’s better than you, too. But I’m not gonna start them on opening day, because I want them to face the No. 3 and 4 pitchers for everybody. If we’re gonna get above .500, it’s gonna be on their shoulders, and I know you can hold your own against everybody else’s opening day guy.’ So I had Jack Morris, I had Charlie Nagy, I had Dave Stieb, all those guys — but Johnny was exactly right.”
After that opening win, Sutcliffe went 15-15 the rest of the way, the definition of holding his own. But Mussina made his first All-Star team and the Orioles earned 89 victories, improving by 22 over the previous season. Sutcliffe enjoyed it so much, he came back for 1993 and went 10-10.
His opening day shutout, then, was the game that gave Sutcliffe a winning record over his two-year stint with Baltimore — yet it almost never happened. The 44,568 fans in attendance — including President George H. W. Bush — might not have known it, but when Sutcliffe was out of view, he spent part of the day getting sick in a bathroom stall just off the dugout.
“Two days before that, we played an exhibition game at R.F.K.,” Sutcliffe said, referring to the stadium in Washington. “They had a huge submarine sandwich out there for everybody to eat, and we all got food poisoning. I literally had a 103-degree fever the day of the game. My wife had to go to the pharmacy at like 1 in the morning the night before. I got lucky that it was overcast, and more than anything, I didn’t think I was going to able to last very long, so I probably put more attention on being aggressive than maybe I ever did.”
With only so many pitches in him — or so he thought — Sutcliffe pounded the strike zone, issuing just one walk and dispatching the Indians in a tidy 2 hours 2 minutes.
“I was just praying that I didn’t throw up out on the mound,” said Sutcliffe, who stayed upright and christened a stylish home that still sparkles today.
Stanton’s Stance Is Working
The Marlins’ Giancarlo Stanton arrived at Citi Field this weekend with 18 home runs since the All-Star break and a career-high 44 this season. Although he hit no homers on Friday or Saturday, he seems poised for his second National League home run title; his first came in 2014, when he hit 37 and his season ended in early September after he was hit in the face by a pitch in Milwaukee.
Since then, Stanton has worn a helmet with extra protection for his face. He has also adopted a closed batting stance — a rarity among modern hitters, but one that serves him well. Eduardo Perez, the broadcaster and former Marlins hitting coach, credited Miami’s current hitting coach, Frank Menechino, for the adjustment.
“He’s been the guy who said, ‘Let’s start closing it off, little by little,’” Perez said. He added that Stanton also angles his back foot toward the catcher and has learned to roll his upper body when a pitch comes up and in.
“So now he knows he can get out of the way,” Perez said. “He’s not worried about that anymore. That’s the biggest key. He’s not worried about having to get out of the way, because he knows he can. Now you’ll see him, and he’ll bounce, he’ll take a step — boom! — and go. And that’s the Giancarlo Stanton that we knew before.”
Perez said Stanton had exceptional hip rotation, which allows him to open up quickly on inside pitches while still being able to hammer the outside pitch.
“I talked to him at the All-Star break and I was a little concerned. I was like, ‘Won’t that get you in and out?’” Perez said, meaning that Stanton’s bat would not stay in the strike zone long enough. “And he was like, ‘No, I feel really strong there’ — and that’s the key, feeling strong without having to get to a strong position. He’s already there.”
Raw strength has never been a problem for Stanton, who is 6 feet 6 inches and 245 pounds. After losing in the first round of the All-Star Home Run Derby at Marlins Park last month, and watching the Yankees’ Aaron Judge seize the spotlight, Stanton has re-established himself as the majors’ premier slugger.
He is clearly being paid to fill that role for years to come. As Jeffrey Loria sells the Marlins, he leaves their prospective new owners — a group led by Bruce Sherman and Derek Jeter, pending approval by fellow owners — with a 10-year, $295 million commitment to Stanton through 2027.
Stanton is widely reported to have cleared waivers this month, meaning he could be traded to any team. But he has a full no-trade clause and can opt out of the contract after 2020, greatly complicating any potential move.
Weaver’s Brother Was Right
When Jeff Weaver pitched for the Yankees in 2002 and ’03, he insisted that his younger brother, Jered, then pitching for Long Beach State, would be much better. It was high praise, because Jeff had already been an opening day starter for Detroit and seemed to be an ace in the making.
It turns out he was right. When Jered Weaver announced his retirement on Wednesday, he had a 150-98 record for a .605 winning percentage — better than that of Walter Johnson, Tom Seaver or Warren Spahn.
Weaver is no Hall of Famer, of course, but his 150 victories — all before a winless fling with San Diego this season — rank second on the Angels’ career list, behind Chuck Finley. Weaver’s fastball tailed off considerably at the end, to about 83 miles an hour, but he trails only Nolan Ryan and Finley for career strikeouts as an Angel, with 1,598.
Jered Weaver also started an All-Star Game, pitched a no-hitter and, at various times, led the American League in wins, strikeouts and walks-plus-hits per inning pitched. But Jeff Weaver, who was 104-119, did something his brother never did: He won a World Series, spinning eight dominant innings in the 2006 clincher for the St. Louis Cardinals.
Perfect Game Is Rarity Again
Tuesday was the fifth anniversary of the last perfect game, by Seattle’s Felix Hernandez against Tampa Bay on Aug. 15, 2012. That gem was the fifth perfect game in the majors in a three-season span, after Dallas Braden and Roy Halladay in 2010 and Philip Humber and Matt Cain earlier in 2012.
The current drought, though, seems to reaffirm the rarity of the feat. Even with strikeouts on the rise — and, thus, fewer balls being put into play — the perfect game is elusive again. If no pitcher throws one in 2017, it will be the fifth season in a row without a perfect game in the majors. The last string of seasons that long was from 1969 through 1980, the years between Catfish Hunter’s gem for Oakland in 1968 and Len Barker’s for Cleveland in 1981.
The two active pitchers who threw the most recent perfect games — Humber is retired — have had forgettable seasons. Cain is 3-10 with a 5.19 earned run average for San Francisco as he winds up a six-year, $127.5 million contract he signed two months before his perfect game. Hernandez has made just 13 starts for the Mariners, going 5-4 with a 4.28 E.R.A. He is on the disabled list with shoulder bursitis, another in a rash of pitching injuries that have challenged the Mariners as they seek their first playoff appearance in 16 years.
Inside the World of Sports
Dive deeper into the people, issues and trends shaping professional, collegiate and amateur athletics.
No More Cinderella Stories?: Expansion of the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament has been a popular topic. But adding more teams could push small schools like Oakland, which upset Kentucky, out of the action.
Caitlin Clark’s Lasting Impact: People have flocked to watch the Iowa basketball star on TV and in person. But will her effect on the popularity and economics of women’s sports linger after her college career ends?
Gambling Poses Risks for Leagues: The situation involving the former interpreter for Shohei Ohtani, the Los Angeles Dodgers slugger and pitcher, shows that when it comes to wagering on games, professional leagues have more than just the players to watch.
Unionization Efforts: How is a football team different from a marching band? The National Labor Relations Board is considering this question as it tries to determine whether some college athletes should be deemed employees.
Delayed Gratification: Doping rules, legal challenges and endless appeals have left some Olympic medalists waiting for their golds.
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