{"id":29286,"date":"2020-07-17T16:40:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-17T13:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/how-knuckleballers-10000-rejection-played-part-in-infamous-yankees-choke\/"},"modified":"2020-07-17T16:40:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-17T13:40:00","slug":"how-knuckleballers-10000-rejection-played-part-in-infamous-yankees-choke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-knuckleballers-10000-rejection-played-part-in-infamous-yankees-choke\/","title":{"rendered":"#How knuckleballer\u2019s $10,000 rejection played part in infamous Yankees choke"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#How knuckleballer\u2019s $10,000 rejection played part in infamous Yankees choke<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n For baseball players not in the postseason, October is dark. Maybe you get surgery if you need it. Otherwise, you lay low, recover from the grind and enjoy the tranquility.<\/p>\n

Which made the Yankees October 2004 phone call to Steve Sparks, an active player entering free agency, all the more unusual. How Sparks reacted to that phone call just might have impacted baseball history.<\/p>\n

To be clear, the pinstrip<\/a>ed call went actually to Barry Meister, the agent for the knuckleballer Sparks, who had just completed his ninth major-league season with a terrible Diamondbacks team. Had the Yankees been inquiring about Sparks\u2019 interest in pitching for them, they would\u2019ve been tampering. Instead, they wanted Sparks to pitch against them, in a manner of speaking.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had had some trouble with (Tim) Wakefield,\u201d Sparks, now an Astros radio broadcaster, said Wednesday in a telephone interview. \u201cThey thought it might be to their advantage to have somebody throw batting practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey asked Barry, \u2018Would he be interested in coming to New York or Boston and throwing BP ahead of what game<\/a>s Wakefield may be pitching in? He could name his price. We\u2019ll put him up in a nice hotel.\u2019 Barry said to me, \u2018You probably could get $10,000, I would imagine.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, this occurred as the Yankees, defending American League champions, prepared to defend their crown against the rival Red Sox, whose veteran knuckleballer Wakefield often gave them fits.<\/p>\n

\"Steve<\/img>
Steve Sparks pitching for the Tigers in 2001<\/span>Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sparks and Meister never named their price.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt kind of halted there,\u201d Sparks explained. \u201cI just felt kind of funny about it. I was going to be rooting for Tim in those games anyway, like I always was. If he wasn\u2019t going to be pitching against my team, I was always going to be rooting for him. It didn\u2019t feel right if it wasn\u2019t a team that I was employed by to go out there and do that. It didn\u2019t feel like karma-wise it was a wise move. I didn\u2019t want to spoil the (knuckleballers\u2019) fraternity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Yankees, of course, paid a heavy price for Sparks\u2019 code of honor, even though Wakefield didn\u2019t start any games. The right-hander did give up a pair of runs in an inning of work in Game 1 at Yankee Stadium \u2014 in hockey scoring rules, he, not Curt Schilling, would\u2019ve been saddled with the loss \u2014 and in the memorable 19-8 Yankees victory in Game 3 at Fenway Park, which gave them a commanding, 3-0 advantage in the series<\/a>, Wakefield earned his teammates\u2019 respect by eating up 10 outs even as he allowed five runs in garbage time.<\/p>\n

Then came Game 5: The Red Sox\u2019s season on the line. A tie game in the 12th inning. Wakefield, throwing to Jason Varitek instead of his usual battery mate Doug Mirabelli, crafted three masterful, shutout innings despite three passed balls by Varitek. The Red Sox prevailed in the bottom of the 14th, and they proceeded to win the two final games back in The Bronx to complete their historic comeback, sending the Yankees into a prolonged funk (for them) in which they didn\u2019t win another playoff series until 2009.<\/p>\n

Submit your Yankees questions here to be answered in an upcoming Post mailbag<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

If Sparks \u2014 who pitched only in the minor leagues in 2005 before retiring \u2014 had accepted the Yankees\u2019 unconventional offer, could it have made a difference? None other than Sparks thinks so.<\/p>\n

In 2013 and 2014, Sparks noted, the Astros asked him to throw knuckleballs to their hitters to prepare them for the Blue Jays\u2019 R.A. Dickey and the Red Sox\u2019s Steven Wright; he felt OK doing this because he was an Astros employee, as opposed to the Yankees\u2019 one-off recruitment.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeaking to the players with the Astros, they did feel like they were much better prepared to face Dickey and Steven Wright when I did throw them batting practice,\u201d Sparks said. \u201cThey had great games (Dickey allowed five runs in each of his three starts against the Astros during that period). We\u2019re talking very subpar teams with the Astros. So i think it definitely would\u2019ve been an advantage at that point to prepare for somebody.<\/p>\n

\"Time<\/img>
Time Wakefield in 2004<\/span>Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cAnd for me, being able to mimic Wakefield, I probably could\u2019ve done it. I threw my knuckleball a little bit harder, but to scale it back and throw it more like him I think it would\u2019ve given (the Yankees) certainly an advantage to stay back on some pitches and maybe recognize some pitches.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a \u201cWhat if?\u201d for the ages, emanating from arguably the most painful Yankees loss ever. Oh, and the next couple of years, the Yankees hired their former pitcher Joe Ausanio, who had pitched alongside Wakefield in the Pirates\u2019 minor-league system and had learned a knuckleball, to help them get ready for his former teammate.<\/p>\n

(Thanks to my friend Tyler Kepner, who first reported on this unusual Yankees offer in his terrific book \u201cK: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/hr>\n

\u2014 This week\u2019s Pop Quiz question came from Gary Mintz of South Huntington: In a 2019 episode of \u201cSchooled,\u201d a pair of students wear Phillies jerseys with 1990s players\u2019 names on the back. Who are the two players?<\/p>\n

\n<\/hr>\n

\u2014 My late friend Phil Pepe wrote a number of \u201cFew and Chosen\u201d books in which he would partner with a beloved player from a storied franchise and select an all-time roster. I just finished the Giants edition, in which the late Bobby Thomson served as Pepe\u2019s co-author and shared his memories of many Giants greats. It\u2019s a breezy read and a must for those who watched the Giants play at the Polo Grounds.<\/p>\n

\n<\/hr>\n

\u2014 Your Pop Quiz answer is Darren Daulton and John Kruk. If you have a tidbit that connects baseball with popular culture, please send it to me at kdavidoff@nypost.com.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

\n

If you want to read more Sports News<\/a> articles, you can visit our General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

if you want to watch Movies or Tv Shows go to Dizi.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a> <\/span> for forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#How knuckleballer\u2019s $10,000 rejection played part in infamous Yankees choke” For baseball players not in the postseason, October is dark. Maybe you get surgery if you need it. Otherwise, you lay low, recover from the grind and enjoy the tranquility. Which made the Yankees October 2004 phone call to Steve Sparks, an active player entering…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[40293,40292],"class_list":["post-29286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-000-rejection-played-part-in-infamous-yankees-choke","tag-how-knuckleballers-10"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}