THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: When these guys came to the plate, you paid attention
These are the questions I love.
Pub questions.
Argument questions.
Tell-a-story questions.
And here’s our doozy for today…
“Who is the most exciting hitter you’ve ever seen — the guy where you drop everything so you don’t miss a single at-bat?”
Oh, man!
You know that question had to come from someone who was getting cranked up to watch “Long Gone Summer,” the ESPN feature on Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa hitting about a million homers in 1998.
And yeah, re-living that season was a lot of fun.
OK, then, some ground rules for answering our question…
The first thing is that we can’t confuse the best hitters — Willie Mays and George Brett top the list of guys I got to see regularly — with the most thrilling hitters.
In that second category, we put players who might hit a ball so hard or so far that you pass on the memory for generations.
So…
Let’s do it.
RIGHT OFF the bat (forgive the pun), I’m not going to rank these guys.
I’ll just toss them out here and you can draw your own conclusions.
Here are the most thrilling hitters I’ve been lucky enough to watch…
OK, it would be crazy not to start the list with BARRY BONDS, right?
Don’t tell me about steroids or any of that nonsense — because Bonds was already legendary before he touched anything that wasn’t natural.
Even when he did, the pitchers of that era were juicing, too, so it was an even playing field.
“Barry would go up there, and he knows he’s better than you,” said John Smoltz, the Hall of Famer who faced Bonds, McGwire and Sosa routinely.
“With Bonds, you know he’s not going to miss a mistake, and the big thing with him is that he wouldn’t chase a pitch out of the zone.
“Your target was about the size of a coffee cup. Seriously, at Barry’s peak, you couldn’t get him out.
“I had some success with the swing-and-miss guys, but not with Bonds.”
Smoltz told a story about deciding he’d try to get in Bonds’ head, pitching him inside and then further inside — something he’d never done before.
“I asked Greg Maddux about it, and he thought it was a good idea,” Smoltz said. “So, on the pitch that was so far inside it almost hit him, Barry pulled in his hands and hit the thing about 450 feet.
“I couldn’t believe a guy could do that and keep the ball from going foul. When I got to the dugout, Maddux said, ‘Well, how did that work out for you?’
“I have no idea how anybody got Bonds out. Anything but a perfect pitch, and the only question was how far he’s going to hit it.”
YES, IT’S true that I’m partial to some San Francisco Giants on this list — and why not, since I saw them a lot in two or three separate eras?
And while Bonds was perhaps the impressive long-ball artist in history, I never saw anyone hit the ball as violently as WILLIE McCOVEY.
My dad took me to a game at Candlestick Park in 1960, and Willie Mac hit a low, whistling home run that barely cleared the glove of Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski — who was playing in short right field.
The thing is, Maz got another look at the ball on its return trip — after the thing crashed into the right-field seats and ricocheted all the way back to the infield.
Onetime Kansas City pitching coach Frank Funk told a story of pitching for the Braves, and having McCovey hit a screamer right back at him.
“I never saw it,” Funk said. “It stuck in my glove, and when I looked down, that ball would have hit me right in the heart.
“Ask around, and pitchers will say they never, ever pitched Mac down and away — simply out of self-preservation.”
I NEED one more mind-blowing hitter on this list, and the pool is kind of limited, because even though I watched Dick Allen hit some prodigious shots, and I’m currently in awe of Mike Trout — we have to add a player I saw game-in and game-out.
So it’s got to be BO JACKSON.
The most stunning all-around athlete I’ve ever covered up close, Bo struck out a ton — but when he made contact, it was lights out.
Bo hit a ball in spring training off Boston’s Oil Can Boyd that might still be in flight.
He hit three homers in a game against the Yanks in New York one night in 1991, then hurt himself before he could bat again.
When he finally returned to the lineup, Bo promptly took Randy Johnson out to dead center in Kansas City — making it four homers in four consecutive plate appearances.
“No matter what I was doing,” Brett said, “I never missed Bo’s at-bats.
“You’d even hurry out of the bathroom to make sure you watched — because you might see something that you’ve never seen before, or ever will see again.”
Indeed, that sentiment was the whole point of this list, right?
Email: scameron@cdapress.com
Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “Moments, Memories and Madness,” his reminiscences from several decades as a sports journalist, runs each Sunday.
Steve also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball, once per month during the offseason.