Third-Hand Glove Made 4 Errors and Will Be First to Go

If you’ve never played baseball, you might laugh at what I’m about to tell. But it’s true. Trust me.

A baseball, like a dog, can sense fear.

I learned this playing the infield as a kid. Baseballs are meek and obedient objects, as long as you show ‘em who’s boss. But if you make an error and start worrying, sweating, praying the ball won’t come your way, the thing will attack you, actually growl and bite your shins.

That’s what happened to Bob Brenly on Sunday.

Brenly was playing third base for the San Francisco Giants. He’s a catcher, but he plays a lot of third base, too. In the fourth inning of this game against the Atlanta Braves, he committed four errors.

No major leaguer has made four errors in an inning since Lenny Merullo in 1942.

I saw replays of Brenly’s four errors on a Sunday night highlights show on TV. If Brooks Robinson was a matador, teasing the bull with his cape, Bob Brenly was a trout fisherman, cleaning his catch with a chain saw.

An easy two-hopper glanced off his glove. Then Brenly bobbled another easy chance, picked up the ball and threw it 20 feet over the catcher’s head.

Atlanta pitcher Charlie Puleo was up next. He stepped into the box, but a coach called him away for a brief conference.

“I’m sure he was telling Puleo to hit the ball to me,” Brenly said.

Puleo didn’t, but Dale Murphy did. He hit an easy ground ball, or what would have been an easy ground ball had Brenly not reeked of fear.

By this time, the ball was like a live hand grenade. Should Brenly throw himself on it and save his teammates, thereby salvaging a measure of honor in death, or turn and run? Courageously, he stood his ground, and the ball kicked off his glove.

What goes through Brenly’s mind right then? Fear? Despair? Humiliation?

“All of those,” Brenly said by phone the next morning.

“You know how you hear the old saying--if you make an error, you want the next ball? That’s a bunch of crap. After the fourth one, I never wanted to see the ball again. I tried to hide behind the third-base umpire a couple times, but he kept moving away.

“It’s easy to laugh now, but I was ready to commit suicide. If I could’ve found something sharp, I would’ve slashed my wrists. It hurt my pride and embarrassed me. My wife was there, sitting with a lot of people who didn’t know who she was, and she had to just sit there and listen. They were yelling things like, ‘Try putting the glove on your shoe.’ ”

And those were Giants’ fans, mind you.

After the third out, Brenly retired to the tunnel behind the dugout and tried to compose himself. His teammates were initially kind, withholding comment. But a couple of innings later, they loosened up and offered him friendly advice, like “Maybe you can get a glove contract with U.S. Steel,” and, “If you’re scared out there, Bob, you should get yourself a dog.”

The funny thing, though, was how the day turned out for Brenly. After helping the Braves score those four unearned runs, Brenly won the game with his bat. He had a home run and an RBI single, then he came up in the bottom of the ninth with two out and the score tied.

He hit a 3-and-2 pitch for another home run.

“That’s as close to total elation as any feeling I’ve ever had,” Brenly said. “As I was trotting around the bases I looked at my wife. I might’ve seen her crying.”

The Giants won the game, and Brenly was the hero, but don’t think anyone will ever forget what crimes he committed with his glove Sunday in the fourth inning at Candlestick Park.

People can be so cruel. The man is out there all afternoon in the hot sun. He even plays two innings behind the plate, his natural position. But does anyone talk about the eight errorless innings Bob Brenly turned in Sunday?

The vultures of the media--me, in this particular case--scurry to the record book and dig out that since 1900, only four players have made four errors in an inning--shortstop Merullo in ‘42, shortstop Ray Chapman in 1914, third baseman James Burke in 1901, and Brenly.

Cooperstown will probably want the glove. It originally belonged to Roy Howell, a veteran good-hit, shaky-field third baseman who tried out for the Giants last season. Howell gave the glove to utility infielder Brad Wellman, who passed it along to Brenly.

“They can have it,” Brenly said, referring to the Hall of Fame people and the third-hand hunk of leather. “That glove’s history.”

So is the baseball, of course, the one that attacked Brenly in the fateful fourth inning. But it won’t get to Cooperstown. If Brenly has his way, the ball will be tested for rabies and then put to sleep.