SAN DIEGO -- Initial reaction to Trevor Hoffman's historic 500th save on Wednesday night? It might be the quirkiest such milestone ever reached.
Except that Hoffman, who has been mining territory no reliever has ever seen since blowing past Lee Smith atop baseball's all-time saves list last September, has the number 500 all to himself.
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| Trevor Hoffman is a family guy -- Brother Glenn, the Padres' third-base coach, is there for the milestone moment. (AP) |
But if and when Rivera or anybody else reaches 500, let's see if they can match this on the Quirk-O-Meter:
The club's general manager, as is his routine, refused to watch it happen live despite the historical significance.
And the closer himself has been changing gloves and spikes after each save all season in deference to history but, because he is so humble and it made him so uncomfortable, he refused to discuss it publicly until the other day.
"As I just told Hoffy, those are the greatest 500 saves I've never seen," said San Diego general manager Kevin Towers moments after a private clubhouse champagne toast to save No. 500. "I've yet to see one live, and I'm not going to jinx it now."
Towers for years has not watched Hoffman pitch the ninth -- in person or on television -- because, in true wacky baseball tradition, he's deathly afraid that his watching will cause his ace closer to falter.
Don't buy that silly voodoo stuff? Then why, when Towers broke his longstanding habit and actually viewed Hoffman in the ninth inning of last summer's All-Star Game on an Idaho bar television while on vacation with his wife, the first time Towers had actually watched since the 1998 NLCS -- did Hoffman blow the game?
Meanwhile, as for Hoffman's glove and spikes. ...
He told me during a conversation way back in April that, on the advice of Padres owner John Moores, he agreed to allow his glove company to embroider save numbers on the inside of his mitts and his shoe company to embroider save numbers and the names of his three children on the tongues of his shoes.
It's been working like this: When he reached, say, save No. 493, he'd stop using that glove and pair of spikes and begin using new ones with the No. "494" embroidered on the inside.
In other words, he's out there on the mound wearing the number of a particular save before it's actually in the books.
