...no DuH

Friday night at the ball-yard formerly known as Pacific Bell Park...
With two outs and the bases empty in the top of the first inning, Cincinnati's Ken "Porcelain" Griffey (Junior) jumped all over a Matt Morris fastball and sent it rocketing deep into the San Francisco twilight, clearing the 24'-high wall in right-center field. It was the 536th home run of Griffey's career, tying him with Mickey Mantle for twelfth on the all-time list.

But that isn't the story.
Matt Morris --all eight wins and eleven losses of him-- shook it off and, sporting nearly two weeks' worth of facial hair, proceeded to hang goose egg after goose egg on the scoreboard, mixing his pitches and mowing down Cincinnati batters with frightening regularity. By the time he'd finished the eighth inning, Griffey's blast represented the only Reds run.

Cincinnati starter Aaron Harang wasn't as sharp as Morris, but he gutted his way through seven shaky innings and somehow managed to allow only two runs before giving way to reliever Ryan Franklin.

The score stood at 2-1 when Steve Finley reached base in the bottom of the eighth. With one out, Giants manager Felipe Alou went looking for some insurance and called for a hit-and-run. Ray Durham swung and missed, but backup catcher Javier Valentin's throw to second sailed high and wide, and Finley scampered safely to third base on the error. Durham then popped up on the infield for the second out.

Giants catcher Eleazar Alfonzo, batting eighth in the lineup, stepped into the batters' box. Morris, of course, was due to bat after Alfonzo. Alou told Mike Sweeney to grab a bat and a helmet and occupy the on-deck circle. It was a ruse: Alou actually had no intention of pulling Morris out of the game, but he didn't want Reds manager Jerry Narron to know that. Obviously, if Narron knew that Morris was going bat, he would simply walk Alfonzo intentionally and take his chances with pitching to the Giants' starter. Alou didn't want that; he wanted to give Alfonzo a chance to push the run across. Unfortunately, Alou failed to carry his ruse far enough: He never called the bullpen to have somebody go through the motions of warming up. It was a bad bluff, and Narron quickly saw through it: He had Ryan Franklin walk Alfonzo.

So, with two men out and two men on in a one run game, Alou called Sweeney back to the bench, and the San Francisco crowd burst into spirited applause as Matt Morris trotted up the dugout steps and onto the field, bat in hand. Hitting .176 for the season, Morris stepped to the plate and assumed that gawky, self-conscious, I'm-just-a-pitcher-and-I-can't-dance batting stance.

Franklin's first pitch was a fastball. He immediately wished he had it back, because Morris smacked it past the diving left-fielder for a stand-up, two-run double, giving himself a three-run cushion to work with in the ninth. The final score was Giants 4, Reds 1.

Dee-aitch? We don't need no stinkin' dee-aitch.

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P.S... Bud "DuH" Selig must go.