| | NEW YORK -- The names are now linked in baseball history:
Bill Mazeroski, Chris Chambliss, Joe Carter ... and Todd Pratt.
They, and they alone, are the only men who know what it's like
to end a postseason series with a home run.
"This was only divisional playoffs," Pratt said Saturday after
his 10th-inning homer off Matt Mantei gave the New York Mets a 4-3
win over Arizona and a 3-1 victory in their first-round series. "I
think if it would have been a World Series or an NLCS, it might
have been something more."
Three years ago, he was out of baseball, released, a thing of
the past, and not a noted one, at that.
Pratt, now 32, was cut loose by Seattle in March 1996 and went
to work at Bucky Dent's baseball school in Florida -- working at
Domino's Pizza to earn money on the side.
"I hated baseball at that point because I was too good a player
and was just getting a bad rap," he said. "Maybe they just didn't
think I was good enough."
He was a spare part on these Mets, around to catch pitchers on
the side and give Mike Piazza a rest now and then. He got only 140
at-bats -- and that was the highest total of his career.
But now the Diamondbacks know about the Domino effect.
"Piazza doesn't play and who hits the homer? It's like a
script," Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo said. "That's
baseball in all its glory."
When Todd Hundley had reconstructive elbow surgery in September
1997, Pratt thought he'd get a chance to win the starting job the
following spring, while Hundley recovered.
But he played badly in Florida and the Mets sent him to the
minors at the start of the season. He wound up having three stints
with New York, going up and down like an elevator.
"Last year was a very testing year for me," Pratt said.
"Every time I got sent down last year I didn't deserve it. I mean,
everybody makes a big deal out of Mike Piazza here, which is
correct. But I am the Mike Piazza in Triple-A."
Pratt hit .356 at Triple-A Norfolk with seven homers and 30 RBI
in 118 at-bats, but just .275 in 69 at-bats with the Mets. This
year, he hit .293 with three homers and 21 RBI for the Mets.
In all, he's been part of seven major league organizations and
has played for 14 different pro teams. He was on Philadelphia's
postseason roster in 1993, but did not play in the World Series.
"I was a career .300 hitter in Triple-A. Everybody knew I
didn't belong there," Pratt said. "They kept on bringing catcher
after catcher in here, and they kept getting sent out because I was
the player -- and today was the exclamation point on that."
The first time he was sent down last year, he almost quit again,
but the Mets' Triple-A manager talked him out of it.
"I was considering not showing up to the Norfolk squad," Pratt
said. "If it wasn't for Rick Dempsey at that point coming to my
hotel room three days later, I probably would have never showed
up."
He was brought up May 5, wound up on the DL, then was sent back
to Norfolk on July 31, even though he was hitting .313 (15-for-48).
"They said it was a numbers game," he recalled Saturday. "At
that point was the first time I cried after being talked to by a
manager. At that point, I stayed here three days once again
contemplating asking for my release and saying, 'Forget it, there
has to be another team that wants me."'
Then Butch Huskey got hurt and Pratt was brought back up.
"All I know is he put forth the effort, kept himself ready,"
Dent, now a coach with the Texas Rangers, said Saturday. "That's a
plus for him. He didn't give up, didn't quit and now look -- he
found himself in a playoff situation and hit a home run. That's
great, man. It just shows that you can never give up."
In the glow of Saturday's win, the Mets were thankful for that.
"Thank God for Todd Pratt and the job he did today," Mets
general manager Steve Phillips said. "I think the best thing about
Todd is mentally he stays in the game, even when he's not
playing."
Pratt did his best to try to deflect attention. But when you're
a home-run hero in New York, that's impossible. Just ask Dent,
still remembered for his three-run drive over The Green Monster
that propelled the Yankees over Boston in the 1978 AL East
tiebreaker game.
No matter what he does, Pratt has Saturday and the souvenir in
hand -- the ball he hit to straightaway center, the one over Steve
Finley's glove, the homer that put the Mets in the NL championship
series for the first time in 11 years.
"Maybe in his mind, he doesn't think" so, John Franco said,
"but I think there are 24 or 25 guys in that locker room that
think he is a hero today." | |
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Pratt simply amazin' as Mets advance to NLCS
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