Tuesday night’s All-Star Game introduced much of the world to the term “pipe shot,” but the concept has been in baseball for decades.
Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright created a wave of controversy through a night partially devoted to honoring Derek Jeter’s career, which included the debut of Nike’s “RE2PECT” commercial on FOX and a long standing ovation from the crowd and his fellow All-Stars before Jeter led off for the Amercian League in the bottom of the first inning.
After throwing a low ball one, Wainwright tossed a 90-mph cutter over the middle of the plate, which Jeter laced down the right field line for a double. The next batter, Mike Trout, brought the Yankee captain home with a triple. It seemed to be the perfect start to Jeter’s final All-Star Game.
Wainwright later said: “I was going to give him a couple pipe shots. He deserved it. I didn’t know he was gonna hit a double or I might have changed my mind.”
The Cardinals ace backed off his comments later in the game to Fox reporter Erin Andrews, saying, “It was mis-said” and “I did not want to be a distraction.” Wainwright seemed sincere in his desire to honor Jeter, but ruined the moment by confessing.
While grooving pitches to batters is not an uncommon way to honor a retiring player, admitting to tossing meatballs is. They still need to hit a major league fastball, after all. Let’s take a look at other controversial examples of pitchers appearing to intentionally give batters pitches to hit.
Cal Ripken Jr.
In similar fashion to Wainwright, Dodgers pitcher Chan Ho Park threw Ripken a belt-high pitch over the plate in the third inning of Ripken’s final All-Star Game in 2001. The 40-year-old Iron Man didn’t miss.
Todd Helton
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Helton was playing his final game at Coors Field last season when he belted a homer off Jake Peavy, a longtime NL West opponent in town with the Boston Red Sox.
Barry Bonds
Bonds nearly went deep in his last career at-bat in 2007, and Peavy was the man on the mound at San Francisco’s AT&T Park. Peavy admitted at the time, “Me and Barry being buddies, I wanted to take care of him in his old ballpark.” Bonds — reviled in some precincts for his association with BALCO — got ahold of the pitch, but it was caught on the warning track.
Mickey Mantle
Mantle himself tells this story, if a bit fuzzily. With the Tigers up 6-0 (actually 6-1) in Mantle’s final game in Detroit in 1968, pitcher Denny McLain called timeout and told catcher Bill Freehan (actually Jim Price) he was going to let Mantle hit a home run.