Columnist Ron Kantowski: Move over, Irvin Wilhelm: Vegas kid makes baseball history

Thursday, May 20, 2004 | 9:19 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

Well, for one day anyway, those cellular phone towers that the Cingular Wireless folks want to erect with great audacity in Great Smoky Mountains National Park weren't the big story in the eastern Tennessee foothills.

That distinction belonged to an unassuming 22-year-old from Las Vegas who has been dialing zero since the baseball season began.

Brad Thompson, a 6-foot-1, 190-pound right-hander for the Double-A Tennessee Smokies, set a minor league record for consecutive scoreless innings with five more against the West Tenn Diamond Jaxx Wednesday night, running his total to 57 before allowing a run.

A graduate of Cimarron-Memorial High School, Thompson broke an ancient record held by Birmingham's Irvin Wilhelm, who, as far as I know, was no relation to Hoyt Wilhelm, the famous knuckleballer.

Perhaps the reason I hadn't heard of the (way) elder Wilhelm prior to this week was because when he established the record, the state of Oklahoma was still the territory of Oklahoma.

Wilhelm's record stood since 1907 -- 97 years. To show you what a long time that is, it even predated the last time the Cubs won the World Series (but only by a year). Thompson, who also set a Southern League record for consecutive scoreless innings (49) by retiring the first batter he faced Wednesday, came up just four outs shy of the overall professional record of 59, set by the Dodgers' Orel Hershiser in 1988.

For the record (literally), Thompson's streak dates to last August, when he was with Single-A Palm Beach County.

It ended with two outs in the sixth inning Wednesday. Thompson gave up a leadoff double to West Tenn's Richard Lewis, who, as far I know, is not related to the manic comedian, that hit high off the wall. Two outs later, a spoilsport named Mike Dzurilla followed with a clean single that finally gave Thompson an earned-run average. He left with two outs and the bases loaded in the seventh after throwing 110 pitches, equaling his season high. Thompson (7-0) allowed six hits, walked one and struck out six while watching his ERA "balloon" to 0.18 during Tennessee's 11-2 victory.

In 50 innings for the Smokies, a St. Louis Cardinals farm team, Thompson has allowed just 28 hits. He has walked only six batters while striking out 32. Those are numbers, one might think, that would result in a promotion to Triple-A Memphis sooner than later.

At least that's what the local Krispy Kreme donut franchise in Sevierville is hoping. It promised Thompson a lifetime supply of those to-die-for glazed donuts if he was successful in setting the minor league record. So if Thompson winds up the season looking like Mickey Lolich, at least you'll know why.

After the game, Thompson thanked his parents, Patty and Ray Thompson of Las Vegas, who were listening to the game via the Internet, and said he was both proud and relieved now that the streak is history. And part of history.

"There's a sense of relief, in that a couple of times out there I felt like I was on pins and needles," Thompson said. "But I definitely feel very good about this accomplishment, too."

Now, Thompson said, he'll be able to work on a third pitch -- a changeup -- to add to his fastball and sinker. It's that lack of variety in his repertoire that probably has delayed his progress up the professional ladder.

"Hopefully, now I can just come to the ballpark and relax," he said. "I'll be able to go after guys without the fear of getting hurt (by allowing a run)."

A bigger-than-usual home crowd of 3,073 cheered Thompson's every move and marked scorecards and programs for posterity's sake, and who could blame them? There's a reason the record had lingered for 97 years, and that's because it's darn near impossible to pitch 57 scoreless innings in a season, much less in succession.

Given that in the pitching-challenged minors, where starting pitchers arrive at the ballpark down 5-0 (actually, it took Luis Martinez, who started four games for the parent Cardinals last season, a half-inning to fall behind by that count in his latest start for the Smokies), I'd rank Thompson's feat somewhere between Randy Johnson's perfect game and splitting an atom during the seventh-inning stretch.

It's even more remarkable when you consider that four years ago, Thompson, at least in the estimation of his high school coaches, wasn't good enough to make the starting rotation at Cimarron.

Instead, they made him an infielder. That would be like telling Peter O'Toole to get away from the stage and try out for the football team.

Of course, only time and that evolving off-speed pitch will determine where Thompson goes from here. But on Wednesday night, he was on top of Ol' Smokey, all by his lonesome, with nary a cell phone tower in sight.