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 This is Colorado baseball
Posted: Wednesday July 08, 1998 06:03 PM
By Mike Klis It can be assumed that in the extensive annals of baseball lore, all of the game's experts have sworn by it. Good pitching beats good hitting darn near every time. Babe Ruth no doubt believed in it between swats. Yogi messed it up but he got the point across. The mantra was occasionally, if tentatively, repeated during the week leading up to the 69th edition of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Forgive the people in Colorado if they're busting a gut about all this. Good pitching beats good hitting? Hah! Welcome to Colorado. The most revered doctrine in baseball received its ultimate challenge Tuesday night. The world's best pitchers vs. world's greatest hitters at Coors Field. The winner, of course, was Coors Field. As people from around the world watched the American League outlast the National League 13-8 before 51,267 fans at Coors Field, all the rumors were substantiated. There is baseball, and there is baseball played in Colorado. "The air is a little lighter here,'' said Baltimore's Cal Ripken, who in his first ever visit to Coors Field, started the AL's scoring with a two-run double off Atlanta's Tom Glavine in the fourth inning. "I was expecting exactly this type of game,'' said Atlanta catcher Javy Lopez, who has played many games here, but had no experience catching the nasty pitches by Montreal reliever Ugueth Urbina in the pivotal sixth inning. "It played pretty much the way that I thought,'' said Cleveland and AL manager Mike Hargrove, who managed for the Class AAA Colorado Springs Sky Sox in 1989. "The one thing that I had forgot about was how deep the outfielders play. Balls fell in tonight that I haven't seen fall in all year. And truth be told, the balls that fell in front did a lot more damage than the balls that went over the fence.'' The world saw that the ball indeed travels farther in light air. This was evident not only on the home run by Seattle shortstop Alex Rodriguez in the fifth that gave the AL a 5-3 lead, or the majestic, 451-blast by San Francisco's Barry Bonds in the bottom-half that put the NL in front, 6-5, or the solo shot by the game's Most Valuable Player, Robbie Alomar into the right-field seats in the seventh. But there was also Bonds' routine, opposite-fly to left off Toronto's Roger Clemens that ended the third. Maybe now everyone will go a bit easier on the Colorado Rockies' pitching staff. This was the highest-scoring game in all-star history, surpassing the 20 runs scored in 1954 at Cleveland. At 3 hours, 38 minutes, it was also the longest nine-inning game in all-star history, surpassing the 1954 classic. It isn't just the homers that causes ballgames at Coors Field to go on . . . and on . . . and on. No other big-league park has a more spacious outfield, which helped to account for the teams combining for 31 hits, including an AL all-star record 19. "What the world saw tonight was the flip-side,'' said NL right fielder Tony Gwynn, who started the game's scoring with a two-run single in the third inning. "Everyone was expecting to see home runs flying everywhere, but it was the bloopers and infield hits and broken bats that was what this game was all about.'' And it's not only the environment at Coors Field, but the threat of it. This game gathered the game's best arms and most of them seemed spooked. The first four AL pitchers issued a walk. Glavine, the only pitcher who has ever thrown two shutouts at Coors Field, walked three in 1— innings. Clemens, two days after recording his 3,000th strikeout, allowed a walk, hits batsman and the two-run single to Gwynn one inning. Andy Ashby, who used 75 pitches to beat the Rockies in a complete game Sunday, needed 23 to get through his one-inning stint here. The game got away from the host NL after Bonds won his classic confrontation with Cleveland's Bartolo Colon in the fifth. Colon, who eventually would get credit for the win, blew a 97-mph fastball past Bonds for strike one, but after fouling off several pitches, Bonds crushed a 2-and-2 changeup off the Giants' banner drooping from the right-field upper-deck for a three-run, go-ahead shot. The AL regained control for good in the sixth, when the NL defensive players lost theirs. Alomar, all-star MVP one year after his older brother, Sandy Jr., led off with an infield hit. Ken Griffey Jr. followed with another infield hit. After a double steal, Alomar scored the tying run on a passed ball by Lopez. Griffey scored the go-ahead run after Urbina struck out Derek Jeter on a pitch in the dirt that got by Lopez. "I don't think I've ever caught a pitcher that had such nasty pitches,'' Lopez said. "He was throwing a sinker or cutter or something, but the ball was really moving.'' What the world saw was its best players compete in a wild, entertaining, if not always well-played game. Or just another game at Coors Field. "We've all seen that game before,'' said NL coach and Rockies manager Don Baylor. "It's a tough place to play.'' Copyright 1998 The Denver Post
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