Haunted Baseball – Mickey Bradley (1)

Cory Schwartz found a philosophical perspective on the loss. “Maybe it was supposed to be that way so we wouldn’t carry the series around with us too long and lean on it,” he suggests. “The Diamondbacks win closed the book on it in a way that we had to go back to the reality of life, which was the city was still in ruins, or an important part of the city, and these people are still out there who hate Americans and want to kill Americans.”

Interestingly, some odd events in Game 7 had a few Dia- mondback players wondering if they didn’t have their own guardian angels helping out. Ken Kendrick recalls that in the eighth inning “the wind kicked up. It became very cold and it started to drizzle.” Bob Melvin, the Diamondback’s bench coach at the time, found it bizarre. “It doesn’t rain in Arizona,” he says. “Nothing was on the radar, nothing was supposed to come.

And all of the sudden there was a little wind twister in the air.” Dave Dellucci describes it as “almost like a tornado. All the trash was picked up from the stands and was blowing on the field in a circular motion. It was really an incredible sight.” Dellucci was standing next to Mark Grace when the odd weather hit. “We said man, we were up against all the super- natural in New York and now we come here and it seems like we’ve got our own little spirits being churned up.

That’s what it looked like—it looked like we had a higher being involved in our stadium.” Grace himself started the ninth-inning rally with a leadoff hit. As he reached first base, the digits on the scoreboard clock in Bank One Ballpark read 9:11. Kendrick says, “It was surreal.

You almost think the ghosts of Phoenix, to the degree we have any, appeared.” The Diamondbacks—who would inscribe the phrase “9/11/01 Never Forget” on their World Series rings—were well aware that the sympathy of the nation was with the Yankees, and that some viewed their victory as ruining a story of American resilience and triumph over adversity. “T didn’t feel bad about it, but I think you kind of knew the way that most people wanted the story to end,” says Craig Counsell. Randy Johnson, who shared the series MVP award with Curt Schilling, says that viewing the D’backs as spoilsports ignores the fact that the team deserved its victory.

“I think it was a real feel-good story to have the Yankees in the World Se- ries after everything that had transpired,” the lefty ace says. “But it was our opportunity and everybody on our team worked extremely hard to get to the World Series.” Todd Greene agrees. “To be honest with you, the Diamond- backs outplayed us.” Indeed, Arizona outscored New York 37-14 in the seven games—an inequity that further motivates some fans and players to look to the supernatural to explain the Yan- kee wins.

including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to The Lyons Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, P.O. Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437. The Lyons Press is an imprint of The Globe Pequot Press. LOT OR Sake Oia Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bradley, Mickey. Haunted baseball : ghosts, curses, legends, and eerie events / Mickey Bradley and Dan Gordon.

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN-13: 978-1-59921-022-3 1. Baseball–United States–Anecdotes. 2. Baseball–United States–History. 3. Baseball players–United States–Anecdotes. 4. Supernatural–Anecdotes. I. Gordon, Dan, 1965- II. Title. GV873.B66 2007 796.3570973–dc22 2007014418 To our fathers, whose own love of baseball haunts this book ‘a ~ —= i) Ss s — – _ peyye =A wae or = – z= Ves o oe eo iy erm i Wen <2 Svol aw?

eleatep 7 . CONTENTS Introduction Ghosts, Spirits, and Unexplained Events CHAPTER 14 Field of Legends CHAPTER 2 The Bird and Jim Thome CHAPTER 3 The Ghosts of Yankee Stadium CHAPTER 4 Unsafe at Home CHAPTER 5 Stompin’ at the Vinoy CHAPTER 6 Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls CHAPTER 7 The Magic Flute CHAPTER 8 Fright Night in L.A. CHAPTER 9. Friendly Ghosts in the Friendly Confines CHAPTER 10 Rallying Spirits CHAPTER 11. An Otherworldly World Series CHAPTER 12 “Clear My Name” CHAPTER 13.

I See Dead People CHAPTER 14 Shelf Life CHAPTER 15 Coming Home to Rest CHAPTER 16 Room 231 CHAPTER 17 If the Monster Could Talk CHAPTER 18 Let’s Take the Stairs CHAPTER 19 Fowl Ball Ae BY 47 55 63 Td TAY 87 95 109 123 137, 145 149 Aey7/ 163 167 171 vill Curses CHAPTER 20 The Plague of the Plaque CHAPTER 21 Giving Up the Goat CHAPTER 22.

A Foul Ball CHAPTER 23. The Pitcher Bewitcher CHAPTER 24 The Superfan with Superpowers CHAPTER 25 When Is a Curse Not a Curse CHAPTER 26 Curse Busters, Inc.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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