Emergency Baseball Post #48.B

Lenn Sakata

As we get closer to baseball season, certain things can’t be ignored.

One of them is that 70s/80s utility infielder Lenn Sakata, a guy whose Topps cards I somehow still literally get way too many of even today, is the winningest manager in the Giants minor league farm system or something. I don’t know.

I do know this, though:

In the top of the eighth, Altobelli sent Sakata out to play second base. The fans booed; the night before Sakata had made two errors in a 9-3 loss. The number two catcher, Joe Nolan, went behind the plate.

The Blue Jays scored a run in the ninth and led, 3-1. In the bottom of the ninth, the Orioles tied it on a walk to Sakata and three singles. One of those hits came from Benny Ayala, pinch hitting for Nolan.

The Orioles were still in the game, but were out of catchers. Altobelli’s emergency had occurred. He brought left fielder John Lowenstein in to play second base and told Lenn Sakata to put on the catcher’s gear. It draped over him like a kid’s Halloween costume. When he went out to catch pitcher Tim Stoddard’s warmup tosses, he stood a few feet back of home plate.

In the Toronto dugout, Blue Jays manager Bobby Cox is taking all this in. After the game he said, “Sakata was setting up so far behind home plate, he’d never get the ball to second base. I figured we could run all night. So I had them all taking big leads if they got on base.”

The first man up for Toronto in the 10th, Cliff Johnson, didn’t get on base – he rounded them after hitting a home run. When Barry Bonnell singled and left-hand batter Dave Collins stepped in to pinch hit, Altobelli brought in Tippy Martinez. Tippy did not have a particularly deceptive move to first base. Following Cox’s orders, Bonnell took a wide lead off first.

After two nonchalant throws over to Eddie Murray at first, Martinez saw Bonnell leaning the wrong way and picked him off.

Dave Collins walked. Took a big lead.

Martinez picked him off.

Willie Upshaw singled. Took a big lead.

Martinez picked him off.

Cal Ripken led off the bottom of the tenth with a home run to retie the game. After two walks and two outs, Lenn Sakata hit one of his three home runs of the year to win it, 7-4.

— snapshot of Tippy’s Night.

This is what playing Immaculate Grid every day does to you. I have to do something to burn off the cholesterol in my brain.

I can hear my brain freaking out at those empty squares in the morning as I try to think of a different guy who played for the Knicks and the Kings other than Quincy Acy.

Anyway, I think the term is GLOPLOIDS. I have a gallon of GLOPLOIDS competing with dopamine sloshing around in my synapses. It’s 48% nacho cheese.

Here’s an hour with Lenn.