Best comeback wins of 2010, part II

If Rent isn’t there, we’d be relying on only Uribe for SS. That’s a lousy idea.

but Ishikawa would be a left handed bat off the bench…which leads me to think it’s Shierholtz/Renteria or Ishikawa/Rowand pair that makes it…

And holy poop, Nicholson was ordered walked by Mel Ott.

The Supreme Compliment
Ev Parker

The baseball rule book is clear enough. An inten-
tional walk is defined as one in which “the pitcher
makes no attempt to throw the last pitch to the batter
into the strike zone, but purposely throws the ball wide
to the catcher outside the catcher’s box.”

For over a hundred years, baseball fans have wit-
nessed the application of this rule in thousands of
games. Ah, but add one ingredient and we have a tac-
tical play that is anything but commonplace. In fact, we
have the rarest tactical maneuver in the long history of
the game. That ingredient is an intentional walk to a
batter with the bases loaded-the “Supreme Compli-
ment” any hitter can receive.

Records show that in the long history of the
gamethis rare tactic has been employed just twice,
once in the American League and once in the National
League.

In Chicago on May 23, 1901-the maiden year of the
American League-the White Sox were on their way to
an easy victory over the Philadelphia Athletics. The
score was 11-5 and the !is were batting in the bottom
of the ninth inning. (In those days the home team cap-
tain had the choice of batting first or last, and the Sox
had opted to bat first.) The Pis rallied to score two
runs, and with the bases loaded and none out, Sox
manager Clark Griffith took over on the mound to face
the great Napoleon Lajoie. Nap was setting the league
on fire in 1901, and ~ould go on to bat .426, the high-
est single-season batting average recorded in the
twentieth century.

Griffith wanted no part of Lajoie in this situation, and
to the astonishment of the announced crowd of 2,800,
directed his catcher to stand and get ready to take four
deliberate wide pitches. “Griff” then bore down, got
three ground balls and preserved the Sox victory.

W. A. “Billy” Phelan, the old Chicago Daily Journal
reporter, writing for the June l·edition of Sporting Life,
had this to say. “Many and many a time I have seen cap-
tains order a batter passed to first when there were two
on base, but never have I seen a man deliberately take
such a chance as forcing in a run with none out and
good batters to follow.” He also called it the “nerviest
play ever turned on a local diamond and risky enough
to scare an elephant.”

Griffith’s tactic went into mothballs after that spring
day in 1901, and did not reappear for forty-three years.
It was July 23, a hot and humid Sunday in 1944, when
a fifteen- year-old kid was seated in the upper tier of the
old Polo Grounds. From Section 20, between first base
and home plate, the kid had watched the Chicago Cubs
slugger, Bill “Swish” Nicholson, do a number on his Gi-
ants in the first game of a Sunday twin bill. The kid had
seen the Giants’ only decent pitcher, Bill Voiselle, take
a pounding in the first game, which the Cubs won, 7-4.
Worse yet, he had seen Swish Nicholson hit three
home runs in his first three at bats in the opener.
Nicholson had also hit a homer in his last at bat on
Saturday, so he had slugged four in a row, and five so
far in the series with one game still to go. To compound
this reign of terror, this blizzard of homers had pushed
him past the Giants’ all-time hero, Mel Ott, now man-
ager and still right fielder, in the National League home
run derby.

In the nightcap, the Giants held a 10-7 lead in the
eighth inning. Two Cubs were out and the bases were
loaded, and once again Bill Nicholson strode into the
batter’s box. He had already stroked his sixth home
run of the four-game series, and Ott on tired legs trot-
ted to the mound for a word with his
pitcher. Ott decided to seek the third
out elsewhere, and “the Supreme
Compliment” was resurrected after
its forty-three-year sleep. Once again,
it proved a winning strategy. The
pitching-poor Giants held on for a 12-
10 victory and sent the Polo Grounds
crowd of nearly 24,000 home with at
least half a loaf.

That 15-year-old boy left the old
park, across the field and through
the center field exit gate out onto
Harlem’s 8th Avenue, knowing he
had seen something rare,but it took
him nearly fifty years to realize just
how rare. In the next day’s papers
James P. Dawson in the New York
Times never even mentioned the
event. The Sporting News that week
gave it one line in the game story.
It took a “Fans Forum” letter to
Baseball Digest in the early 1990s in-
quiring about the frequency of the
intentional walk with bases loaded to
whet the interest of a retiree, who as
a boy had seen the very play.

Five years of research have turned
up a few near misses and nothing
else. Rumors that Ted Williams and
later Willie McCovey were given this treatment went
nowhere. No documented reports have been found.
Joe “Ducky” Medwick was a hot rumor. Baseball Digest
reported that Al Lopez “seemed to recall” Medwick
getting the treatment in the late 1930s. This rumor was
extensively pursued. Bob Broeg, the great St. Louis
Post-Dispatch writer, seemed to recall it happening, but
added that it never happened in St. Louis. The late
great Cardinal centerfielder, Terry Moore, also
seemed to recall the play but could not remember
where or when. A canvass of players from the 1930s
was interesting. Billy Jurges (Cubs and Giants) never
heard of it. The late Burgess Whitehead (Cards and
Giants) and the late Dick “Rowdy Richard” Bartell (Gi-
ants and Cubs) never heard of it. Harry Danning, the
old 1930s Giants catcher, summed it up best. To the
question on Medwick, Harry asked his own question.
“If you were a rival manager in those days, would you
walk Joe Medwick with the bases loaded to pitch to
Johnny Mize?” Harry said it all.

The research turned up some near misses that had
to be explored. Rumors had Babe Ruth, a likely candi-
date, receiving the “Supreme Compliment” twice in
1923, when he batted .393. Both rumors fell short.
These turned out to be what might
be classified as unintentional-inten-
tional walks. In a June 14 game at
Yankee Stadium against Hub Pruett
of the St. Louis Browns, Ruth flailed
weakly at Pruett’s slow balls, ac-
cording to the New York Times,
before walking on a 3-2 count. The
second Ruth sighting alleges an in-
tentional bases loaded pass on
September 26, again at the Yankee
Stadium, in a game Ray Francis of
the Tigers was winning 3-0. No
mention of this rarest of plays
showed up in the Times, The De-
troit News, or the Detroit Free Press.
H. G. Salinger, writing his “Tiger
Tails” for the Detroit News, touched
upon game highlights, but men-
tioned no bases-loaded intentional
pass to Ruth. It never happened.

The last rumor involved, appro-
priately, the Giants’ Mel Ott, who
ordered the treatment for Bill
Nicholson in 1944.

On October 5, 1929, in Philadel-
phia, the Phillies were hosting the
Giants in a meaningless double-
header near the end of the season.
Ott was prevented from catching
the Phillies’ Chuck Klein for the home run crown that
year by Phillies manager Burt Shotton ordering his
pitchers to give Mel nothing good to hit. Ott walked six
times in that double bill, the last time with bases loaded
on a 3-2 count, in a 12-3 Giant win. Perhaps an uninten-
tional-intentional walk, but not the “Supreme
Compliment.”

Five years of research have turned up only two pure
instances of the “Supreme Compliment.” A fine monu-
ment stands in Chestertown, Maryland, honoring the
town’s native son, Bill “Swish” Nicholson, who died in
early 1996. The inscription mentions that baseball leg-
end has it that only two men in major league history
have ever been intentionally walked with the bases
loaded: Babe Ruth and Chestertown’s own Bill
Nicholson. It’s a fine memorial to a fine man, and the
two count is correct. I can personally attest that Swish
got the treatment (I was, of course, that kid in the
stands). But the other guy was Lajoie, not Ruth.

          o Abner Dalrymple, August 2, 1881 – the Bisons were were down 5-0 versus the White Stockings in the eighth inning. The “Chicago Tribune” described the moment with, “In the eighth the bases were filled, and nobody out, on successive hits by (Fred) Goldsmith, (Silver) Flint, and (Joe) Quest, and (Jack) Lynch was so afraid of Dalrymple that he gave him his base on balls and brought Goldsmith in with the gift.” Another Tribune quote which described the moment said, “At one time, when the bases were full, Lynch deliberately sent in seven balls rather than take the chances of a hit by Dalrymple, who was at bat, and in this way forced a run upon Chicago.”
          o Napoleon Lajoie, May 23, 1901 – the Athletics were batting against the White Sox in the top of the ninth inning. They were down, 11-7, but had the bases loaded and none out with Lajoie – on his way to a Triple Crown – up. Manager Clark Griffith inserted himself as relief pitcher and “calmly sent four wide ones across” to deliberately force in a run, bringing future home run champs Socks Seybold and Harry Davis up with the bases still full. Griffith then disposed of Seybold, Davis, and Morgan Murphy on infield grounders, saving the 11-9 win.
          o Del Bissonette, May 2, 1928 – the Giants led the Dodgers, 2-0, in the top of the ninth, but Brooklyn loaded the bases with two out. Giants’ manager John McGraw then ordered pitcher Larry Benton to walk Bissonette, in his 16th major league game, purposely ending the shutout. Benton then struck out Harry Riconda to end the game.
          o Bill Nicholson, July 23, 1944 (2nd game) – The Giants led the Cubs, 10-7, in the top of the eighth with the bases loaded, none out, and Nicholson – who had homered four times already that day – at the plate. Giants’ manager Mel Ott (who was probably sitting next to McGraw when he ordered it done on May 2, 1928) ordered Ewald Pyle to walk Nicholson, bringing up Dom Dallessandro, Andy Pafko, and Don Johnson. The Cubs tied the game up by the time the inning was over, but New York went on to win, 12-10.
          o Barry Bonds, May 28, 1998 – The Diamondbacks led the Giants, 8-6 in the bottom of the ninth, with two out, the bases loaded, and Barry Bonds up. Arizona manager Buck Showalter ordered Gregg Olson to issue the IBB, putting the tying run on third and the winning run on second. Brent Mayne then lined out to end the game.
          o Josh Hamilton, August 17, 2008 – Bottom of the ninth, Rangers trailing by five with the bottom third of their batting order due up. Six batters later, Texas had scored one, recorded two outs, but had the bases loaded with Josh Hamilton stepping to the plate. Tampa Bay Rays’ manager Joe Maddon told Grant Balfour to intentionally walk Hamilton, not only forcing in a run, but bringing the winning run, Marlon Byrd, to the plate.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/recbooks/rb_wk3.shtml