Mario Mendoza

November 24th, 2009 @ 05:50pm

Mario Mendoza managed to outdo himself in 1982, his final year. He only had 18 plate appearances for the Texas Rangers that season and actually batted .118/.118/.118. No, I’m not stuttering or copy-n-pasting.

If not for the phrase “The Mendoza Line”, we’d probably all have forgotten about him by now. He’s the image of inept hitting, having hit just .215 for his career (thus a .200 BA being the Mendoza Line). Personally, I find it even more amazing that his OBP was a mere .245. That means he actually got out 3/4 of the time in his career. How he managed to play parts of 9 seasons is beyond me.

But little do people know, that there’s a great irony in how his career ended.

It was a Saturday night in Kansas City, May 22, 1982. The Royals and Rangers were tied 1-1 entering the 12th inning. The Royals had legendary closer Dan Quisenberry on the mound, during the peak of Quizz’s career.

The Rangers lead the inning off with a single. Then something off the wall amazing happens. Rangers manager Don Zimmer takes rightfielder Larry Parrish out of the game for a pinch hitter. The pinch hitter is Mario Mendoza.

Now, sure, Parrish was in a bad slump, batting around .100 for about a month, but he’s replacing a slumping hitter for a hitter who’s batting .118 for the year. On top of that, he has Mario in there to sacrifice the runner over. Uummm, couldn’t Parrish do that?

Then one of those amazing baseball moments happen. When Mendoza lays down a sacrifice bunt, something goes weird…and Mario Mendoza ends up safe at 1st and the lead runner is safe at 2nd. A couple batters later, Mario’s scoring the final run of the game to bring the Rangers to a 3-1 lead. Which is how the game ended.

When I think about it, I have to figure this was Zimmer’s plan all the way. He must’ve figured that if Parrish laid down a bunt, he’d have little to no shot at reaching safely because he’s slower than Mendoza, who had 48 career SH enterting this game. So Zimmer wasn’t actually trying to sacrifice the runner over, he was actually putting Mendoza in the game to get a hit. And he did it. If he wasn’t playing for Mendoza to get a hit, he would’ve just let Parrish stay in the game and sac bunt.

So, let’s recap. The guy who’s infamous for being unable to get base hits, ends his career by getting to pinch hit precisely because the manager believes he’ll get a hit and then he actually does get the hit, and then he crosses home plate for the final run of the game. How amazing is that? Oh and in the bottom half of the inning he catches a pop fly by Frank White for the final play of the game and his career.

Statistically it’ll always be counted a sacrifice, but in reality, I think it was a hit since he wasn’t really trying to sacrifice.