Best Sluggers Put Something Extra Into Their Swings

Dear Answer Man ...

It seems like every time a slugger hits a home run these days, he explains it to the media by saying, “I got my arms extended.” What exactly does this mean?

The worst thing that can happen to a baseball hitter, other than becoming involved with Margo Adams, is to get jammed by the pitcher, to have an inside pitch strike the bat on the skinny handle. To avoid this predicament, many hitters are submitting to relatively new orthopedic surgery known simply as “getting your arms extended.”

It’s a procedure in which a six-inch section is removed from each thigh bone, and is inserted into each upper-arm bone, known as the humerus, although there is nothing funny about the bone or the operation. The operation can be performed under either local or general pain-numbing drugs, but most players prefer that the surgeon be stone sober.

With his arms surgically extended, the hitter is able to stand deep in the batter’s box and still reach all areas of the plate with the fat part of his bat. Some hitters with extended arms can actually bat from the on-deck circle, although this is considered hotdogging.

There are also side advantages to the surgery. A hitter with good arm extension can tie his shoes without bending over, and long arms are an asset at fast-food drive-through windows, where the normal-armed person has to lean awkwardly out of his car and invariably drops his change, french fries or both on the driveway.

Extended-arm ballplayers who golf as a hobby find it necessary to have their club shafts shortened to a length of about six inches.

Players who get their arms extended usually follow up with an operation to get their contracts extended. But that’s another story.

Bernie Bickerstaff, the coach of the Seattle SuperSonics, seemed upset after Sunday’s game because the fire alarm in the team’s hotel had gone off at 3 o’clock that morning. Surely Bernie doesn’t suspect any Laker involvement in that untimely mechanical malfunction? Paranoia runs deep during the NBA playoffs, but Bickerstaff seemed satisfied when told of the results of the hotel’s investigation into the alarm mishap. Hotel security guards briefly detained Laker trainer Gary Vitti after he was found wandering in a hotel hallway a 3 a.m., holding a flaming torch next to a smoke detector. But Vitti was released after explaining that he was merely participating in the torch relay for the Barcelona Olympics.

When one hotel security officer said, “Wait a minute, those Olympics are three years away,” Vitti explained, “How long do you think it takes to jog to Barcelona?”

I see that Mike Tyson was awarded an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters by Central State University in Ohio, “For his influence on young people,” presumably Michael Spinks and Robin Givens. Has Tyson been honored by any other universities? Several, but in one noteworthy ceremony attended by the Answer Man, Tyson was named a Doctor of Humanities and Parallel Parking by the Acme University of Driving in Barstow (school motto: “Take me to Acme, driver, and step on it!”).

Acme U’s dean, Thornton Gridlock III, saluted Tyson for “spotlighting the critical need for driver training among athletes.” Dean Gridlock, who was late for the ceremony because Tyson had parked his bright red Linguine-Testaverde in the dean’s reserved parking stall, also praised the lead-footed heavyweight champ “for striking a healthy fear into the hearts of sane drivers everywhere.” He called Tyson “The rightful heir to the driving legacy of Mr. Magoo.”

Tyson addressed the students, telling them not to use him as a role model.

“I don’t recommend that you drive 71 m.p.h. through a crowded city, as I recently did,” Tyson said. “That was stupid of me. When you drive that fast, it’s hard to pick up babes.”

Notably absent from the Acme U. festivities was Don King, Tyson’s trusted confidante and adviser, who was slated to receive a honorary doctorate in Spiritual Back-seat Driving. King was attending a meeting of the Electrochemical Society, where he was attempting to convince the world’s leading scientific minds that he has produced cold fusion in his hair follicles.

This is a silly question, but what did Ted Williams hit in 1941? .406.