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A Day At The Ballpark
Fifth Inning
By Will Lingo
FIFTH INNING Braves manager Pat Kelly has an early night, getting ejected for arguing balls and strikes. Richmond scores one run in the inning, but home-plate umpire Matt Hollowell rings up James Jurries on a 3-2 pitch with two outs and the bases loaded. Jurries contests the call, and Kelly joins the discussion. While Kelly declines to share details, he ends up on the short end of it, as managers usually do. "I thought the pitch was outside," Kelly says, "and it was a huge situation. The bases were loaded, we're trying to get to Standridge, and he's tiring. It's the fifth inning, we've got the tying run up, and that was the key play in the game. I thought it was a good six inches off the plate." Kelly's early exit gives him extra time to think about his lineups. His team lost Russell Branyan (trade), Mike Hessman and Damon Hollins (callups) and Jackson (Korea) from the middle of the lineup in the span of 10 days and subsequently lost five straight. The moves radically altered the team Kelly thought he would have, but such is the nature of Triple-A. "We went from a veteran club with power to a young club, very quickly," he says. "The biggest issue now is to keep the guys that we have going. We can't roll over; we still have to play to win. It's tough to be competitive with teams like Durham and Columbus that have a lot of veterans on the field, but that's what we have to do." One of the Bulls veterans is Sandberg, who's beginning his fifth season in Durham. He comes through again, with an RBI single to stake the Bulls to a 6-1 lead. He takes off for second with third baseman Edwards Guzman at the plate. Guzman hits a hard grounder to short, but Sandberg beat the throw to second base. "I wasn't breaking up a double play, it was actually a hit-and-run—I'm not that fast!" Sandberg laughs. "That's why I got there so quick. Guzman's a double-play candidate, so with me not being so fast, it kind of puts everything in motion. Their pitcher (Trey Hodges) is pretty slow to the plate, with that high leg kick. I knew that if the ball was in the dirt, I had a pretty good chance of stealing the base and if it was right there, Guzman would get a good swing on it. He hit it right at the shortstop and I was lucky enough to get a good jump so I could advance. I was just thinking, 'Take a few steps and see if the ball's hit.' That's pretty much the way that went down." Sandberg has played parts of the last three seasons in the big leagues but doesn't have a big league attitude about being in Durham. He likes the on-field promotions, unlike many players who tend to see them as more of a sideshow.
"Anytime you can get the fans closer, they're more involved and that's the way all the minor league parks are built," he says. "They're closer to the players and anytime you can get the crowd involved, it's a good thing. I don't think it's distracting at all. I think it's fun. How can you not have fun with sumo wrestlers and guys in their 30s and 40s, whether they've had kids or not, trying to put a diaper on a doll? Sometimes that one doesn't turn out too pretty, but I think that one's my favorite. They've gotten really creative and I think it keeps everyone in the game. It's two minutes between innings and you can kind of wander off and lose track of why you come to the game. It kind of keeps you in the game." A native of Olympia, Wash., Sandberg and his wife enjoy living in North Carolina during the season. The two have become resident experts for new teammates looking for things to do, restaurants and places to shop. "It feels a lot like home," he says. "My wife and I like it a lot. The Carolinas is a hotbed for minor league baseball. They come out and support their teams, like tonight we had almost 10,000 people here. That's pretty amazing."
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