I'm no baseball purist. Low-scoring games bore me as do contests
filled with well-executed plays by highly compensated stars. Maybe it
has something to do with all the years I spent watching Little League
games but I find baseball is best when it's unpredictable.

My two sons went with me to spring training in Arizona recently and
we saw two games in one day, a crisp Angels game in Tempe followed by a
wild and sloppy Giants game in Scottsdale that included a nine-run
inning and several horrible plays. I'll take the Giants game any day.

The old Los Angeles Angels won such a contest at Wrigley Field,
defeating the Seattle Rainiers 12-10. But as The Times' Al Wolf wrote,
"They really didn't win at all."

Carmen Mauro's pinch-hit, three-run home run was the difference with
two outs in the ninth inning. If things were only that simple.

With one out, Dick Wilson struck out and reached first base when the
ball got away from the catcher. The runner at first advanced to second.
Wilson should have been out automatically–a hitter can't advance on a
strikeout if there's a runner already at first. That should have been
the second out.

Eddie Malone popped out and that should have been the ballgame. Instead that was the second out. Mauro then homered.

The Rainiers should have protested and they did–in the first inning over a completely different matter.

"[Seattle] Manager Jo-Jo White … fell asleep–along with the
umpires and all the Seattle players–when he had a real kick coming in
the ninth and fateful inning," Wolf wrote.

They missed some ending.

–Keith Thursby