Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Burkhart goes from bushes to Busch

A 32-year-old native of Tijuana, Loaiza is 10-2, with a 2.15 ERA. He hasn't had such command since 1991, when he went 5-1 in 11 starts in a rookie league with the Gulf Coast Pirates.

Even Berman, during Sunday night's ESPN telecast, joked about someone else's reference to him being overexposed. It's true, Chris. The cutesy stuff grew stale years ago.

Carl Pavano, Mark Redman and Dontrelle Willis have helped the Marlins forge a 3.98 ERA, 10th-best in the majors, and better than San Francisco (4.00) and Atlanta (4.03). And Josh Beckett (right elbow strain) hopes to return next week.

If Florida didn't have one of the game's worst bullpens, it would be a contender.

The Diamondbacks visit Detroit for three games this weekend, which should boost the confidence and poise of the young Arizona pitchers as the team waits for Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson to heal.

Eleven days earlier, Morgan Burkhart dined in a steak house on Flamingo Road and talked about what would serve as one of the unforgettable highlights of his career.

A stocky Omaha Royals first baseman for whom lining singles off outfield walls is a trademark, Burkhart did not talk about hitting a home run in Yankee Stadium or playing in a World Series.

Better.

As he chewed on a medium-rare filet, Burkhart, a 31-year-old hunter and fisherman from Missouri, salivated about one day walking to the plate in Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

He did not know the Kansas City Royals were scheduled to play an interleague series in the Cardinals' stadium the following weekend.

Royals fans will have to forgive Burkhart, a 5-foot-11, 230-pound switch-hitter who was born and will always live in the St. Louis area. A Hazelwood (Mo.) West High graduate, Burkhart resides in O'Fallon, Mo., 7 miles from the mighty Mississippi River.

He attended many games at Busch with UNLV assistant basketball coaches Jay Spoonhour and Deane Martin in the mid-1990s, when they were at Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg, Mo.

Burkhart helped the Mules win the Division II national baseball championship in 1994, then joined the team's coaching staff in '95.

Burkhart has played in Colombia (where he was the lone American in the league) and Mexico, and he is the only Richmond Rooster who has had his jersey, No. 33, retired.

He was a Rooster from 1995-98, and he was the first Frontier League position player to make it to the majors when Boston sent for him in 2000. The league's MVP award, which he won three times, is named after him.

Burkhart hit .255, with five home runs, in 36 games for the Red Sox in 2000 and '01. He played in 42 games in Fukuoka, Japan, last season before injuring his left shoulder.

He's Huck Finn with a few extra pounds, a fishing pole in his right hand and a bat in his left. He will always be a Cardinals fan, and fate enabled a dream to come true for him last week.

Burkhart set the stage for himself when Omaha, the Triple-A affiliate of the Royals, visited Cashman Field to play the 51s two weeks ago.

During his first Las Vegas visit, Burkhart did not only feast on a choice filet. In that four-game series, in which the Royals won three, Burkhart went 8-for-15, with four doubles and five RBIs.

The parent club was watching and last Friday, Kansas City purchased his contract from Omaha. Burkhart caught a flight from Fresno, with pitcher Ryan Bukvich, and joined the Royals in ... St. Louis.

Friday night, in the seventh inning against Cardinals pitcher Kiko Calero, Pena summoned Burkhart to hit for Jason Grimsley. Burkhart hit a soft infield lineout.

Sunday, after the Cardinals' honored the one-year anniversary of popular pitcher Darryl Kile's death with a moment of silence, Burkhart again pinch-hit, grounding out against St. Louis closer Jason Isringhausen.

"Being in that stadium, it was kind of neat," Burkhart said Monday via his cell phone in Cleveland, where the Royals begin a series tonight. "I have been in there so many times, and it was neat to be in there as a player.

"Growing up in St. Louis, baseball is such a big thing for a lot of people. Baseball is so huge there. It's hard to explain to a lot of people. It was a great feeling to play there, but playing anywhere is very rewarding."

In those first six starts, Halladay had a 4.89 earned-run average and the Blue Jays averaged 4.3 runs in games he began. In winning his past 11 starts, his ERA is 2.60 and the Jays have averaged more than 7 1/2 runs.

He won again Sunday, on three days' rest, by allowing four hits and no earned runs over eight innings in Montreal.

Halladay should be a shoo-in to start for the American League in the All-Star Game in Chicago on July 15. The National League starter? Kevin Brown of Los Angeles gets our vote.

On May 25, 1922, Ruth was thrown out at second base. He vehemently disagreed with umpire George Hildebrand, then threw dirt into Hildebrand's face to earn the ejection.

En route to the Yankees' dugout, according to Baseball Almanac, a fan called Ruth "a lowdown bum, and other names that got me mad," Ruth said, so he went after the fan.

Ruth was fined $200 by the commissioner's office, and he was stripped of the captaincy.

Those details have been unearthed in the aftermath of owner George Steinbrenner's naming of Derek Jeter as the Yankees' 11th captain last month. As of late Monday, Jeter still was the Bombers' captain.

Howard W. Rosenberg, an Arlington, Va.-based author whose biography of Cap Anson is scheduled for release next month, contends there actually have been 15 Yankees captains.

In a mass post-Jeter e-mail, Rosenberg pegged Clark Griffith, Kid Elberfeld, Roy Hartzell and Frank Chance as four of the first five captains of the team -- between 1903-1916 -- who have been left off the official list.

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