Tell me Something Good

Let's talk about something fun (which precludes the just completed series in Minnesota).

Josh Robbin's quest to travel across the country by automobile and see games in all 30 major league ballparks in 27 days stopped in Phoenix last week for the Thursday afternoon game against the A's. The game notes on the blog seem to have disappeared. I did notice in reading them that Josh was scheduled to be interviewed after the game by Fox Arizona, but the interview was nixed by Mark Grace, who needed a smoke break instead.

Last Thursday night, one of the most unusual nights in baseball occurred as switch hitter faced switch pitcher in a minor league game. After the batter and pitcher both changed sides 4 times, a timeout was called.

Apparently unsure of how the rules handle such an oddity, the umpires didn’t stop the cat-and-mouse game until Venditte walked toward the plate and said something while pointing at Henriquez. Umpires and both managers then huddled and the umps decided the batter and pitcher can both change sides one time per at-bat, and that the batter must declare first.

The ruling favored the pitcher, since he gets to declare last.

About seven minutes after he first stepped in, Henriquez struck out on four pitches as a righty against a right-handed Venditte and slammed his bat in frustration. Staten Island won, 7-2.

It's now in the hands of MLB who will make an official ruling.