Triple-A All Star Game 2004 - AAA Baseball - A Rival Revered - On MLN Sports Zone

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A Rival Revered

By Dan Hickling
Minor League News

PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- It has been foretold that there will come a day when swords will be beaten into plowshares, and the lion will lay down with the lamb.

So yes, peace and reconciliation is possible, as anyone watching the 17th Annual Triple-A All-Star Classic will testify.

Even in Pawtucket, as deep in Red Sox country as you can get.

What other explanation could there be for the sight of 11,197 baseball loonies, the vast majority of them Red Sox die-hards, cheering their lungs out for Andy Phillips, a farmhand for the hated rival New York Yankees.

Phillips, a second baseman for the Columbus Clippers', had just socked a dramatic walk off homer with two out in the bottom of the 10th inning, to give the International League a 4-3 Triple-A All-Star win over the Pacific Coast League squad. [Photo]

Phillips teed off on a 1-0 slider from Tacoma Rainiers' reliever Scott Atchison (Tacoma) and sent it over just over the wall in left center. The mob scene was already waiting as, he approached home plate.

Suddenly, venerable McCoy Stadium, whose professional baseball history stretches back to 1946, was coming unglued.

"That's what these kind of games do to you," said Phillips, who has 15 regular season round trippers coming into the Minor Mid-Summer Classic. "You stop and realize that this game is tremendously fun. It takes some of the pressure off, because you realize it's not for the playoffs, and you don't have to win.

"You're enjoying the game for what it is, and the fans are enjoying it. I don't
think we could have written a better script for the fans."

Well it might have been even sweeter if one of their own Pawtucket Red Sox,
either Andy Dominique or Earl Snyder, had provided the heroics.

Although, if anyone's nose was bent because it was a fledgling Pinstriper standing in the afterglow, no son or daughter of New England was letting on.

"I think the All-Star game was the only time that could ever happen," said Phillips. "These are great fans here. I keep hearing that about Red Sox fans, and it's definitely true."

Had Phillips made the last out instead of striking the decisive blow, the game would have been called, a Bud Selig-style tie.

Instead, Salt Lake catcher Wil Nieves, who was behind the plate waiting to receive Atchison's offering, got a great view of the ball sailing over the wall.

"It was kind of hard," Nieves said about the loss. "These are guys you never face. You do the best you can, and they got away with a win."

Still it was a fitting end to a topsy-turvy game.

The PCL's 2-0 first inning lead off IL starter Ben Hendrickson (Indianapolis) was set up by Trenidad Hubbard (Iowa), who worked a leadoff walk, then used his 38-year old legs to swipe second.

Singles by Larry Sutton (Albuquerque) and Calvin Pickering (Omaha) got him around the rest of the way. Sutton was later brought home on a RBI single by John Gall (Memphis).

The IL was held hitless until Rochester's Justin Morneau singled with one away in the bottom of the fourth. Joe Vitiello (Toledo) promptly followed with a mammoth shot over the left field fence, tying the score at 2-2.

"It's always nice when you can do something to help your team win," said Vitiello, who hails from nearby Stoneham, Mass. "Especially coming here."

Vitiello was the last IL hitter to reach until the seventh, when he worked PCL reliever Marty McLeary (Portland) for a lead off walk.

Meanwhile, PCL batters had their own troubles.

IL hurlers allowed just two men on from the second through the sixth, and both of those were erased on double plays.

Erick Almonte (Colorado Springs) nearly broke the stalemate with one away in the top of the eighth, with a drive to deep center that forced Midre Cummings (Durham) to scale the wall in a spectacular defensive play.

Cummings was primed to earn the game's MVP honors when he slammed a Ron Flores (Sacramento) fastball onto the left field berm to give the IL a 3-2 lead in the 8th inning.

But the PCL rebounded with an unearned run in the ninth, after Pickering (charitably listed at 260 pounds) singled, and later lumbered home on a passed ball by Dane Sardinha (Louisville).

"I don't think they were seeing my signs very well," said Sardinha, whose brother Bronson Sardinha stars for the Double-A Trenton Thunder."

That set the stage for the coming dramatics, which came at the expense of Atchison, who came on in the ninth and retired the first five men he faced.

"He was trying to get me, I was trying to get him," said Phillips. "He'd been dominant the whole night, and I was just fortunate. He's a tough guy. You could tell by the way he was throwing. I was just fortunate to get a pitch to hit."

Photos of the Game