Brantley Makes the Best of Bad Night in the Field

While Angel pitcher Willie Fraser was providing the tension Wednesday night at Anaheim Stadium, Seattle outfielder Mickey Brantley was supplying the comic relief.

Fraser was the star of the show, the leading man, taking a no-hitter into the seven inning. But he was almost upstaged by the game’s jester, Brantley, who was putting on a comedy of errors in left field during the Angels’ 2-1 victory.

In the third inning, with two Angels on base, Johnny Ray ripped a single to left and Brantley got to the ball in plenty of time to throw out Jack Howell at the plate.

But when Brantley stepped back to make the throw, the ball was no longer in his glove. It was on the ground.

“I just couldn’t get it out of my glove,” Brantley said. “I had a good jump. He would have been gone.”

Instead, the Angels scored their first run.

“One run doesn’t mean anything,” Brantley said.

Quite right. But in the fifth inning, with one out, Dick Schofield lined a ball right at Brantley.

And Brantley dropped it. And Schofield went to second on the two-base error.

“It was in the lights,” Brantley said. “I turned. I did everything I should have done. But I couldn’t see the ball until it hit the heel of my glove.”

The next batter was Devon White. Not wanting to spoil a good thing, White dropped the ball into shallow left. Brantley came charging in for what would have been a spectacular catch.

But the ball dropped next to him. And Schofield scored from second with the Angels’ final run.

“Then I felt like . . . I had done everything I could,” Brantley said.

By this time, fans started chanting “Hit it to Brantley.” All around him, he could hear the laughter and catcalls.

Instead of sulking, or talking back to the crowd, Brantley hammed it up in the spotlight.

On his next opportunity, when Brian Downing lifted a fly ball to left to lead off the sixth, Brantley ran in to make the easy catch. The crowd cheered wildly.

And Brantley raised his hands in in victory and took a few quick bows.

“Hey, they weren’t cheering me, it’s just that I caught the ball,” Brantley said. “But I’ll go along with it. I can’t let (the mistakes) get me down.”

Brantley, who is in his second year with the Mariners, had just four errors coming into the game. He finished the game with one more and some added embarrassment. And though he didn’t let it show, the mistakes did bother him.

“I’m a better defensive outfielder than anything else,” he said. “I work on all that specifically.”

Brantley grew up in Catskill, N.Y., and, during his off-season from the minor leagues, he was a substitute teacher in high school. One of his pupils was boxer Mike Tyson.

Brantley said Tyson wasn’t a great student. But Brantley said he was a good teacher and plans to return to that career when his baseball career ends.

But right now he’s learning the lessons of baseball.

“It’s a game of breaks,” he said.

“I messed the play up, but I can’t let it get me down or else it will just snowball. I’ve just got to go back out there tomorrow and try it again.”