Mesa says his mission to bean Vizquel is over

By Hal McCoy

Staff Writer

CINCINNATI | Colorado's Jose Mesa — that's Joe Table in English — made good on a promise after he read Omar Vizquel's book.

In his autobiography, Vizquel blamed Mesa for losing the 1997 World Series when both played for the Cleveland Indians. In response, Mesa said he'd hit Vizquel every time he faced him.

In three at-bats since, Vizquel has been hit three times by Mesa. And when Mesa did it last week, he torched a beanball incident between the Rockies and San Francisco Giants.

Vizquel said during the offseason he would charge the mound if Mesa hit him again, but he didn't do it.

The Rockies, who have 16 more games to play against the Giants, asked Mesa to cease and desist, and he said, "I'm through with that. I know I'm in trouble. They hit two of our players. I have to get Vizquel out. I'm going to play the game from now on. I'm going to pitch him away, let him hit a ground ball to me."

And then what will Mesa do? Throw the ball at him, like Cincinnati's Rob Dibble did once when he fielded a grounder hit to him by Chicago's Doug Dascenzo? Dibble hit him in the leg.

Albert the Great

Albert Pujols may be the best thing in St. Louis since the king of bottled beer, but even he is still learning.

After he hit a homer against Pittsburgh's Oliver Perez last week, he flipped his bat in the air in disdain for Perez. Pujols said he did it in retaliation for Perez doing a fandango on the mound after getting him to ground out.

"I was pretty upset about it," said Pujols. But he said he heard about his bat flip from his wife, Deidre, and teammate Scott Rolen.

Pujols said Rolen told him, " 'Don't bring it down to that level, because you're going to be the one who looks stupid.' I did. I looked stupid. It was my fault."

But he still hasn't apologized for that game-winning walk-off ninth-inning home run against Cincinnati's David Weathers.

Swordless Pirates

This isn't how it was envisioned by Hamilton native Jim Tracy, one of baseball's nicest guys. He believed he could turn around the Pittsburgh Pirates, who have had 13 straight losing seasons.

Well, this year's edition, the first under Tracy, started 5-18, the franchise's worst start since 1957.

The Bucs brought three veterans in to stabilize a young roster — Sean Casey, Joe Randa and Jeromy Burnitz. Casey is on the DL, and neither Randa nor Burnitz is hitting above .245.

One of those three, who asked for identity protection, shrugged his shoulders and said after the team lost its home opener to fall to 1-7, "I didn't realize things were THIS bad here."

Beginning at 40

When Chicago's Greg Maddux was a kid, he worked as a janitor at a gym in Las Vegas run by Keith Kleven, a physical therapist who has worked with Tiger Woods and Mike Tyson.

This winter, for the first time, Maddux went to Kleven for physical conditioning and Kleven said, "Greg came to the conclusion that he needed to do more than he usually did in the winter to keep pitching at a high level. He really committed to it."

Maddux showed up at 7 a.m. three or four times a week and worked for 90 minutes, "And he didn't miss a workout," said Kleven. "It was neat to see his body change the way it did."

The National League, other than the Cubs, wish Kleven had minded his own business after Maddux, 40, started the season 4-0 with a 0.99 ERA.

The patience plan

Milwaukee's Rickie Weeks is suffering through defensive miseries, much the same way Cincinnati's Edwin Encarnacion is having defensive miseries, mostly throwing errors.

Milwaukee manager Ned Yost defends Weeks, and his logic also applies to Encarnacion, who played only 616 minor-league games. Weeks was drafted by Milwaukee in 2003.

"Guys who get accelerated are the guys who go through this," Yost said. "We have a Hall of Famer as a coach (Robin Yount) who made 44 errors in his second year. It's the process. You don't panic. You continue to work through it."

And you hope no fan gets maimed behind first base.

14th Blum's plum

It was a long time between big hits for San Diego's Geoff Blum, and it looks as if he needs 14 innings.

It was in the 14th inning of Game 3 in last year's World Series when Blum hit a game winning home run for the Chicago White Sox against the Astros.

Now he plays for the Padres and was 0-for-10 on the season until he singled in the 14th inning against the New York Mets.

"The 14th inning has been good to me," he said. "I'm dangerous at dawn."

Quote of the week

Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki is off to an uncharacteristic passive start, but he isn't fooling Chicago manager Ozzie Guillen, who has watched Ichiro hit .356 against the White Sox.

"Two things in life are for sure and one isn't taxes. You are going to die, and Ichiro is going to get hits."