‘Bucking’ the Odds: Showalter’s Bases-Full Intentional Walk

Every baseball season includes some novel and unusual events that standout from the ordinary. Ed Price, the Diamondbacks’ beat writer for the Tribune Newspapers, thought the Diamondbacks’ most extraordinary moment during its inaugural season was Manager Buck Showalter’s decision to intentionally walk Barry Bonds with the bases loaded.

 

Gregg Olson called it “sane.” Few may agree.

After Buck Showalter ordered Barry Bonds intentionally walked with the bases loaded and two outs in the ninth inning last May 28th, forcing in a run that cut the Arizona Diamondbacks’ lead to one, the D-Backs prevailed 8-7 over the San Francisco Giants.

Olson went to a full count on Brent Mayne after the walk to Bonds. But the strategem, rare if not unparalleled in baseball history, paid off when Mayne lined out to right field to end the game.

“Our manager has elephantitis of the nuts,” said starting pitcher Brian Anderson, who watched on TV in the clubhouse as the move helped preserve his first victory in over seven weeks. “I thought I’d seen it all. I’ve never seen anything like this, the frickin’ biggest sac move I’ve ever seen in my life.

“There wasn’t even a frickin’ doubt. No other manager makes that move. They play by the book. Buck could give a frog’s fat ass.”

Fumed Mayne: “They got lucky, Buck got lucky, Olson got lucky. If they do it again, I’ll hit another [expletive] rocket. … I hope it happens again. I thoroughly enjoyed that situation. It was fun.”

As far as anyone could determine, Buck Showalter is the first manager in 45 years to intentionally walk a batter with the bases loaded. Yet Showalter refused to call it the “right” move.

The only other1 documented bases-loaded intentional walk was issued to the Cubs’ Bill “Swish” Nicholson on July 23, 1944. In the second game of a Sunday doubleheader, New York Giants manager Mel Ott had Nicholson put on in the top of the eighth inning, forcing in a run that tied the game, 10-10. Nicholson, who would finish second in MVP voting after leading the NL with 33 homers and 122 RBI, had already hit four homers in the doubleheader and one each on Friday and Saturday.

The Giants won the game, 12-10.

“[Fifty-four] years?” Olson said. “That’s pretty good.”

“I’ve heard about it, but I haven’t actually seen it,” Giants manager Dusty Baker said. “It was a gutsy move, but it worked. I don’t know if I would do it. Each man has to walk in his own shoes.”

“Just because it hasn’t been done isn’t a reason to do it or not do it,” Showalter said. “There’s only three or four people in the game I would consider it with, and Barry is one of them.”

It was not some instantaneous hunch. Showalter had anticipated the situation and even thought about issuing Bonds a free pass in the eighth, with the score 7-5 and a man on first.

“We’ve got a run to play with there [in the ninth] and [Olson’s] just about out of gas,” he said. “We’ve got a choice between one of the great players in the game and a guy who’s a very good player in Brent Mayne. I understand it was really unorthodox, but I had a lot of confidence ‘Oly’ could get out of it.

“What do you think has a better chance of happening: [Olson] walking another batter or Barry getting a base hit there?”

“I don’t even want to discuss it,” said Bonds.

Here’s what Showalter was facing. After walking J.T. Snow to load the bases, Olson had thrown 40 pitches. Ready in the bullpen were right-hander Russ Springer, who was not at full strength because of the flu, and lefty Efrain Valdez, who had pitched the previous two nights and was last in the majors in 1991.

Before that game, Bonds had faced Olson twice, walking him both times. Against Springer, Bonds was 0 for 4 with two walks and a strikeout. And he had never faced Valdez. Mayne, also a left-handed hitter, had never faced Valdez either. Mayne was 2 for 6 against Olson before flying out and 1 for 5 with three strikeouts against Springer.

But Showalter had decided to go with Olson, despite his control problems and struggles with a wet mound, rather than a sick Springer or tired Valdez. And he didn’t want Bonds to tie the game with a hit.

“I’ve never seen it.” Showalter said of the run-scoring free pass. “I understand what the normal procedure is in most situations. But I don’t think anybody in our dugout thought anything positive was going to happen with Barry Bonds hitting. When I had a chance to bypass that possibility, we did.

“It’s a situation as a manager where you don’t ask a bench coach, you don’t ask a coach. It’s your decision. You don’t put somebody [else] on the spot.

“It doesn’t make me right or wrong because it worked,” he said. “I’ve made some moves in my career that I know in my heart were right but didn’t work on the field, because we’re dealing with human beings.”

“I gave it the triple take,” catcher Kelly Stinnett said. “I had to look three times to make sure what I was seeing. At the time, I thought, ‘Wow,’ but if you think about it, it’s playing the percentages. The guy’s going to score anyway if Bonds gets a single.”

Said Olson: “Buck had the confidence and faith in me to get the next guy out. I appreciate it. It was interesting.” Interesting? To say the least.

Ed Price covers the Arizona Diamondbacks for the Arizona Tribune Newspapers, serving suburban Phoenix. A version of this article appeared in the Tribune and is reprinted with permission of the author.

 

Notes

1 Research following the publication of this article has uncovered three instances of a bases-loaded intentional walk before Barry Bonds in 1998 — Bill Nicholson in 1944, Mel Ott in 1929, and Nap Lajoie in 1901.