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FOXSports.com -MLB-My worst birthday present ever -- HOME NFL MLB NBA NHL NASCAR NCAA FB NCAA BK GOLF SOCCER TENNIS ACTION MORE FANTASY SHOP MLB Home · Scores · Schedules · Standings · Stats · Transactions · Injuries · Teams · Players · Odds · Tickets OTHER EXPERTS: Select an Expert » Troy Aikman » Tom Arnold » Paul Attner -- » Brian Baldinger » Tommy Baldwin » Phil Barber -- » Jillian Barberie » Todd Behrendt » Ben Blake » Michael Bradley -- » Terry Bradshaw » JT The Brick » James Brown » Matt Brown » Steve Byrnes » Paul Cannon » Rich Cirminiello » Brian Cox » Matt Crossman -- » John Czarnecki » Brian Delucia » Mike DeCourcy -- » Dave Despain » Sean Deveney -- » Ben Dougan -- » Ray Dunlap » Jimmy Elledge -- » Bernie Federko » Stan Fischler » Pete Fiutak » Fly -- » Jim Fox » Jay Glazer » Paul Grant -- » Steve Greenberg -- » Jeff Hammond » Matt Hayes -- » Kevin Hench » Bob Hille -- » Oliver Hinz » Hockey's Future -- » Vinnie Iyer -- » Tom Jensen » Jimmy Johnson » Darryl Johnston » Todd Jones -- » Mike Kahn » Clay Kallum » Kasey Kahne » Max Kellerman -- » Dave Kindred -- » Roger Kuznia -- » Michael Lazarus » Howie Long » Steve Lyons -- » Jimmy Makar -- » Mark McCarter -- » Tim McCarver » Ryan McGee » Bobby McMahon » Peter McNab » Stan McNeal -- » Larry McReynolds » Eric Moneypenny » Warren Moon » Chris Myers » Ian O'Connor » Robin Pemberton -- » Ryan Pemberton -- » Dayn Perry » Dan Pompei -- » Shawn P. Roarke » Drew Remenda » Chris Rose » Charley Rosen » Fritz Quindt -- » Michael Rosenberg » Ken Rosenthal » Jeff Ryan -- » John Salley » Lauren Sanchez -- » Adam Schein » Kathy Sheldon -- » Dave Sheinin -- » Peter Schrager » Andrew Siciliano » Lee Spencer -- » Spector -- » Tony Stewart » Benson Taylor -- » Jamie Trecker » Dennis Tuttle -- » Leeann Tweeden -- » Kyle Veltrop -- » Krista Voda » Darrell Waltrip » Nick Webster » Sean Wheelock » Van Earl Wright -- » Kara Yorio -- » Matthew Zemek » Greg Zipadelli -- General » BoxingScene.com » DIME Magazine » FOX NFL Sunday » Funhouse » Funhouse Foxes » Scout.com » War Room -- My worst birthday present ever Story Tools: Print Email XML Kevin Hench / FOXSports.com Posted: 31 days ago -- Mike Remlinger made his first appearance for the Red Sox on Aug. 9, my birthday. He faced four hitters. They all reached base and scored, leaving him with the dreaded indefinable ERA., expressed as ###, or --- depending on your box score. He followed up this wretched Red Sox debut four days later with another empty appearance, facing two batters — retiring neither. After he had faced six batters and not recorded a single out with a lifeless fastball in the mid 80s, like most Sox fans, I'd seen enough. Hey, I get it, reliable lefty setup men are as hard to find in 2005 as cheap gas. Sox GM Theo Epstein took a shot, and it didn't work. Time to move on? Mike Remlinger has allowed four or more runs in three of his five relief appearances for the Sox. (Winslow Townson / Associated Press) Not so fast. Remlinger made his third appearance for the Sox three days later, summoned to protect a 10-3 lead in the bottom of the 10th against the Tigers. He did finally record an out, three in fact. But during his one inning of work, he also yielded a walk, a base hit, another walk and a grand slam. In three appearances, he'd faced 13 batters, and nine of them had scored. Certainly, walking two guys with a seven-run lead had earned him his walking papers? Nope. Remlinger was back out on the hill less than 14 hours later, asked to hold the line in the getaway day game against the Tigers after David Wells was roughed up for six runs in four innings. And lo and behold — as opposed to low and outside as he had been the previous night, Remlinger retired four of the five batters he faced, lowering his ERA with the Sox to 20.25. And, regrettably, buying some more time on the roster. The next night in Anaheim, the 39-year-old lefty was once again summoned for mop-up duty. He again made an unsightly mess, allowing five runs on six hits and a walk. It's hard to raise your ERA when you enter the game with a 20.25 mark, but Remlinger did it, leaving the hill at 21.21. Yes, his ERA looks like a football score at the start of overtime. So, to sum up In five appearances with the Red Sox, Remlinger has faced 31 batters, 18 of them have reached base and 14 of them have scored. These numbers strike me as way worse than when Jose Oquendo, Mark Grace or Robin Ventura took the hill. (Turns out they are: those three infielders had a combined 10.13 ERA in five relief appearances.) This isn't the first time Mike Remlinger has bitterly disappointed me. In 1991, I was a sportswriter for the Valley News in West Lebanon, New Hampshire when I drew the assignment of driving up to Montreal to do a local-boy-makes-good story on Remlinger — who was in his rookie season with the Giants after starring at Dartmouth. A month earlier, Remlinger had lit up the baseball world and electrified the Giants' organization by pitching a complete game shutout against the Barry Bonds-Bobby Bonilla Pirates in his Major League debut on June 15, 1991. Since then, it was Remlinger who'd been lit up, allowing 17 runs in 26 innings. But my story wasn't going to be about his recent struggles. It was going to be a glowing tribute to the Ivy Leaguer turned Major Leaguer. I made the long schlep up I-89, over the Canadian border and across the bridge — the Pont Victoria? — and pulled into the parking lot of the baseball monstrosity known as Olympic Stadium. (Has baseball ever had such a stark contrast between the beauty of a city and the ugliness of a stadium?) I guess the Expos' media relations department wasn't accustomed to processing out-of-town credential requests because they not only didn't have my press pass when I got there, but didn't seem capable of generating one once I was standing at the window. After a very long wait, I was finally admitted to the joyless press box in the dreary stadium. After his spectacular debut, Remlinger had been bumped from the rotation and sent down to the pen, but he didn't pitch in the game. That didn't really matter for my purposes. I was there to profile a conquering hero, a son of New England — Plymouth, Ma., who at the age of 25 had made it to the show. He was that most-sought-after commodity, a hard-throwing lefty, and his future couldn't have been brighter. I made my way down to the clubhouse, where I was none too surprised to learn at the door that the guest pass the media relations people had given me did not allow me access to the locker room. Great. So I'd come all the way to the most Godforsaken outpost in Major League baseball, and I wouldn't even get my interview. A so-so day was getting worse. I saw another Giants rookie, outfielder Mark Leonard, entering the clubhouse and called to him as familiarly as I could, "Hey, Mark." Now Mark Leonard didn't have a lot of media types (or fans) calling out to him — especially in Montreal — so he stopped in his tracks as if a dear friend was saying hi. I asked him if he would be so kind as to ask Mike Remlinger to come out to the hallway so I could get my interview. He said sure. (The near future was actually much brighter for Leonard than Remlinger, but the outfielder would be out of the bigs for good by 1995.) I waited around for quite a while and was just about to give up and start the long haul home when Remlinger emerged from the clubhouse. What a cool dude, I thought, meeting me in the hallway so I could get my story and not have wasted an entire day. I was ready with my questions and Mike was ready with his grunts. It was brutal. I wanted spine-tingling detail on the journey from Red Rolfe Field in Hanover, N.H. to blowing away the NL East champs at Candlestick. What I got was basically, "F off, kid." Now, in fairness to Remlinger, for all I know he had just come from the manager's office where he'd been told he was getting sent down. Because after pitching the next day in the exhibition Hall of Fame game — always a bad sign for a pitcher regarding his importance to the big club — and getting shellacked, Remlinger was indeed sent back to the minors. It would be three years before he would claw his way back to the Majors with the Mets. At the time, however, I wasn't feeling so forgiving. I'd driven more than three hours to do a nice story on a guy whose college career had been chronicled by my newspaper. And he was a jerk. At this point in my young sportswriting career, I'd already been big-timed by Roger Clemens, so I was prepared for how surly and uncooperative a professional athlete can be — even when the media member standing in front of him is doing a rah-rah piece. But Mike Remlinger? (One interesting note on Remlinger and Clemens: Remlinger has allowed four or more runs in three of his five relief appearances for the Sox while Clemens has allowed four or more runs only twice in 25 starts for the Astros.) I drove home wondering how I was going to cobble the grunts and fragments into something that made it look like I had actually interviewed the pitcher. He hadn't pitched and he'd barely talked. I was getting that gnawing feeling in my gut that a reporter gets when he doesn't have the story. I'd gone above and beyond to get into the stadium and actually get a face-to-face — well, face-to-scowl — interview with the subject. But I was still worried that what I'd hoped would be a great profile, rife with insight from the erudite pitcher himself, would read like a flavorless AP wire piece. As I was fighting my way through the story the next day, trying to stretch it into something worth a drive to Montreal, it came across the wire that Remlinger — after giving up three home runs to the Twins in the exhibition in Cooperstown — had been sent down. Well, it was an angle anyway. I ended the profile with the petulant line, "It's better to have a bust in Cooperstown than to be a bust in Cooperstown." Here's hoping that 14 years later, my second snarky piece on Mike Remlinger coincides with his departure from a Major League club. Kevin Hench is supervising producer of The Sports List on Fox Sports Net, as well as the head writer for the Too Late with Adam Carolla show on Comedy Central. -- TOP STORIES • Coles takes courageous stand against abuse • Time to play nice at Presidents Cup | Scoreboard • Astros retain wild-card lead | Phillies keep heat on • Red Sox's Foulke might be done for season • Raffy the rat? Palmeiro reportedly implicates teammate • Jets' Martin probable after participating in practice • Point taken: Payton latest addition to new-look Heat • Free beer if German team loses | World Cup brothel? • Hands down, Braves fans the dirtiest according to study More News | All RSS XML MLB NEWS Recent Articles by Kevin Hench • Baseball's biggest surprises of 2005 • Fast Forward: NFL Week 2 • You don't care, but here's my fantasy team • Fast Forward: NFL Week 1 • Rice was NFL's ultimate gamer Headlines • Handicapping the playoff races • Red Sox's Foulke might be done for season • Astros retain wild-card lead | Phillies keep heat on • Rockies drop Padres back to .500 with 4-2 victory • Maddux blanks Brewers, close to another 15-win year • Raffy the rat? Palmeiro reportedly implicates teammate • Griffey needs surgery on both knee and hamstring • Hands down, Braves fans the dirtiest according to study • Report: Piniella to accept buyout from Rays | What next? More Headlines | All RSS XML | MLB Video • J-Mo comes through • Hafner leads Tribe • Streaking 'Stros • D'Backs down Dodgers Video Home | All RSS XML FOXSports.com: Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Press | Feedback | Jobs | Tickets | News Corp. | controlyourtv.org | All RSS XML FOX.com | FOX News | FX | Fox Soccer Channel | Fuel TV | Fox Reality - © 2005 Fox Sports Interactive Media, LLC. All rights reserved. © 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use Advertise TRUSTe Approved Privacy Statement GetNetWise Anti-Spam Policy --
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