Playing the Game Right

Now, I wonder — do he and they still scream bloody murder in Cincinnati over the night Pete Rose's hitting streak was stopped cold?

When Blaine Boyer handed Ken Griffey, Jr. first base on the house with nobody out, two runs in, a man on second, Brandon Phillips coming up, and the Reds with a vintage opportunity to put a Sunday afternoon game way beyond the Atlanta Braves' reach, you could almost hear the bristling around Great American Ballpark: Chickens!

Almost.

Griffey — whose first inning jerk Saturday afternoon had brought him at least to with one of number 600 — had already picked up two hits in the game, a first-inning single with two out and none on and, after Jay Bruce padded his phenom papers with a one-out blast over the left field fence, a third-inning double that built the third Cincinnati run of the day, thanks to Phillips doubling to the rear end of left center field.

He'd come up again in the fifth, the Reds still holding Tim Hudson in the hole 3-0, after Jerry Hairston, Jr. wasted a grand scoring chance by getting himself caught off the pads, but Bruce (who'd walked him to second after his one-out single) frisked and arraigned. Griffey hit one on the dead line to right, except that Jeff Francoeur was in the neighborhood with no intention of letting the Reds hang up the fourth run.

And there he was in the seventh, after Mark Teixiera and Brian McCann launched back-to-back bombs to wreck Jorge Cuerto's shutout, after Edwin Encarnacion chased Hudson with a leadoff single, and after Royce Ring found himself two runs further in the hole thanks to Yuniel Escobar's throwing mishap (allowing Anthony Phillips first on the house and Encarnacion to help himself to third), Hairston's RBI sacrifice back to the box, and Bruce's RBI single to left.

Mr. Fan in the Stands is now thinking, perhaps, that real men man up and challenge the big man who may have lost a few steps over the years to all those hustling injuries but who still has what it takes to break open a ballgame wider than the Pacific Ocean with one sing. Oh, you could just see it now. They weren't going to put Griffey on with Brandon Phillips having himself a decent day at the plate and an RBI double on his day's timecard.

And you could just hear those Reds fans, to many of whom history isn't just a bunch of dusty books in the basement, remembering that it was against this very franchise that Rose got stopped cold by a relief pitcher whose money was made on breaking balls around the corners and who didn't seem to believe that hitters, even those as iconic as Rose had been, had an absolute right to keep their hitting streaks alive.

Never mind that those Braves had managed to lighten Gene Garber's load — he'd come into the game with a mere four-run lead in the top of the seventh, and needed a punchout to stop a remade Cincinnati rally that Rose himself had helped kill — with a three-run bottom of the seventh and a five-run eighth.

They fumed almost as profusely as Rose did when that game was over, with Rose himself ending the game by swinging and missing on one of Garber's trademark breakers. He didn't play the game right!

Among other things they'd forgotten was that Rose stepped up in the ninth having gone hitless already in that game. He'd walked to open the game; he stranded Pedro Bourbon at first with a two-out liner back to Atlanta starter Larry McWilliams in the second; he'd opened the Reds' fifth lining grounding out to shortstop.

And there was that top of the seventh rally he'd done his best to help murder, when he lined into a double play with nobody out after Dave Collins had opened with a single up the pipe. Junior's father and Dave Concepcion resurrected the rally with back-to-back singles before Garber dispatched George Foster with a strikeout rather comparable to the one he'd drop on Rose to end the game two innings later.

Pete Rose had no more business accusing a pitcher of failing to do his job than Gene Garber would have had, in fair and honest competition, in giving him a hitting-streak-saving gimme, no matter how fat the Atlanta lead had been built by the time they squared off in the ninth.

What a surprise that Rose bellowed about how he thought Garber would/should have challenged him with a fastball that everyone in baseball knew would have brought Garber accusations that he really was trying to let Rose extend.

This time, however, you couldn't level any such malfeasance accusations at the Braves. Not when they're in the hole by three runs and a man hunting bomb number 600 is priming himself in the box. All Boyer had to do was even think about trying to challenge Griffey and Bobby Cox would have come out with a court order and a straitjacket as well as a hook.

So Boyer did the only thing he could do, and Griffey took first on the house, and if booing was the worst thing Reds fans did this time around you shouldn't hold it against them. Phillips followed up with an unintentional walk, and Boyer had only himself to blame for the sixth Cincinnati run, when his wild pitch invited Bruce home on the house, but Boyer played the game as rightly as Gene Garber had all those years ago.

And, as rightly as Rose himself would do, approaching Ty Cobb but swinging away on the road, when everyone including his owner wanted him to save it for the home crowd, because he stood in position to keep a rally alive and make a shot at a win, rather than force a free pass to his big RBI man by sacrificing rather than hitting away.

And Griffey — who acquitted himself a lot better en route his final latest crack at reaching his milestone before the home folks Sunday afternoon than Rose had done en route his final crack at extending his 44-game hitting streak — wasn't about to accuse the Braves of leaving their manhood in the clubhouse.

It's not that he's unaccustomed to reaching milestones away from home. He got his 200th, 300th, 400th, and 500th bombs in enemy territory, too.

He's spent a lifetime and given about half his body to playing the game right, and he wasn't about to spoil it by denying the Braves the smarts to do what they had to do when he had a chance to bust it open wider. Which is another reason why the yawn that seems to be accompanying his reach for 600 is so dispiriting.

Everyone yaps about the "right" or "wrong" person reaching this or that milestone. The right person is about to reach one that the two previous arrivals didn't reach without baggage enough. And nobody seems to care all that much, outside a city that's already seen one of her own baseball icons exposed painfully enough for clay.