Let’s Turn the Hose on These Firemen

Here’s hoping that one of these nights, Rick Monday will leap from the broadcast booth, dash to the field and heroically drag a Dodger relief pitcher from the mound, moments before the reliever bursts into flames.

Like a couple of foiled protesters, the opposing offense will be left hunched over the place where the relief pitcher had been only moments before, vainly striking matches in the breeze.

Monday will hold the gasoline-drenched reliever over his head triumphantly, the crowd will roar, and the courageous act later will be memorialized on an outfield wall, along with Eric Gagne’s perfect game, Adrian Beltre’s 100-homer season and Kevin Malone’s executive of the year trophy.

We can dream, can’t we?

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Or was he pushed? It came as no surprise that a man threw himself from the top deck at Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees, after all, were in the midst of losing two of three to the Boston Red Sox.

The shock was that the guy officials peeled unconscious from the netting behind home plate was not Brian Cashman, the Yankees’ general manager.

George Steinbrenner, well into his late-season form, is capable of such reactions.

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Junior’s crib: Looking for a big place in the Seattle suburbs?

How about Ken Griffey Jr.’s former estate? It’s on the market for a paltry $2.3 million.

The flyer sent to Seattle-area real estate agents reads, in part, “The Griffeys created an entertainers’ paradise reflective of a major-league lifestyle,” adding that the “home is wrapped in its manicured setting where nature harmoniously coexists with the creature of its inhabitants.”

Whatever that means.

What we do know is that the former inhabitants couldn’t coexist with the creature that is Mariner management.

As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer noted, “The house is not in the Cincinnati school district.”

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For the birds: Peter Angelos has very little time for the likes of Jesse Helms, the North Carolina senator who, in a letter to the Justice Department, blasted the Baltimore Oriole owner for allegedly discriminating against Cuban defectors.

Angelos is a much better lawyer than he is a baseball owner, and he was not the least bit intimidated.

“The irresponsible statement of Senator Helms clearly establishes him as the best argument for term limits,” he told the Washington Times.

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Dead ones for Rey: From Mark Kriegel of the New York Daily News: “Major league baseball can no longer deny the obvious: Pitchers are using special pre-juiced baseballs for the sole purpose of facing slugger Rey Ordonez.”

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Tattle tales: Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully, to the Chicago Sun-Times, on former big-league outfielder Gene Freese: “He once got back to the hotel after a night on the town and he called the front desk and asked for a 7 a.m. wake-up call. The operator said, ‘You just missed it.’ ”

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Hold the mold: Red pitching coach Don Gullett, to no one in particular, as he prepared to leave Dodger Stadium’s visiting clubhouse for the playing field: “Well, it’s time to go out and get some fresh smog.”

Fair enough. But do you know what they have in Cincinnati?

Mold.

It comes from the Ohio River that oozes between Ohio and Kentucky. The town smells like mold. The people smell like mold. Junior, one day soon, will smell like mold.

It clings to the city like hockey players to Anna Kournikova, and just as shamelessly.

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Who are you people?: Tampa Bay played 27 of its first 42 games on the road.

Asked after a long trip about a reunion with his family, current Angel and then-Devil Ray Kevin Stocker said in mock surprise, “Kids? I have kids? I don’t have kids.”

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Big numbers: Five players still wear Jackie Robinson’s No. 42, which they already had three years ago when all of baseball retired the number.

They are: Anaheim’s Mo Vaughn, Houston’s Jose Lima, Philadelphia’s Mike Jackson, New York’s Mariano Rivera and Minnesota’s Butch Huskey.

No. 42 has been good for Mo this season, though he barely survived last year.

The rest are having a hard time.

Jackson had shoulder surgery and will miss the rest of the season. Huskey can’t hit his weight (though neither could a couple of Hall of Famers). Lima is 1-7 with an 8.19 earned-run average in 10 starts. Rivera’s ERA is 3.57 after being below 1.92 in each of the past three seasons.

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Men in black: The Oakland A’s wore their black jerseys on the season’s hottest day and beat the Twins by nine runs.

“If it meant playing naked out there, as long as we won, I wouldn’t mind,” A’s second baseman Randy Velarde said.

Because, you know, there are few things more humiliating than playing naked and losing.

One of them, though, would be standing on the mound at Dodger Stadium, looking up and seeing Rick Monday coming.