NOTES

By Bill Plaschke

Oct. 22, 2001 12 AM PT

Late Saturday, the Braves came up with a record excuse for their record-tying three-error inning that led to their 11-4 loss.

They blamed it on the dew.

Seriously.

They said they threw the ball around like youth leaguers because they couldn’t grip the ball because it was, well, wet.

Maddux’s two-run error on a wild throw to the plate?

“The ball was wet, I threw a spitter,” Maddux said. “I didn’t know I was going to be throwing a spitter. If I did, I would have aimed a little more toward the left than I did.”

Rey Sanchez’s wild throw to first?

“I could see water coming off the ball,” teammate Chipper Jones said. “The field has never been this way. The humidity caused the dew to settle. Every ball that was put into play, it was taken out after one play because it was waterlogged.”

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Bill Plaschke

Bill Plaschke, an L.A. Times sports columnist since 1996, is a member of the National Sports Media Hall of Fame and California Sports Hall of Fame. He has been named national Sports Columnist of the Year nine times by the Associated Press, and twice by the Society of Professional Journalists and National Headliner Awards. He is the author of six books, including a collection of his columns entitled “Plaschke: Good Sports, Spoilsports, Foul Balls and Oddballs.” Plaschke is also a panelist on the popular ESPN daily talk show, “Around the Horn.” He is in the national Big Brothers/Big Sisters Alumni Hall of Fame and has been named Man of the Year by the Los Angeles Big Brothers/Big Sisters as well as receiving a Pursuit of Justice Award from the California Women’s Law Center. Plaschke has appeared in a movie (“Ali”), a dramatic HBO series (“Luck”) and, in a crowning cultural moment he still does not quite understand, his name can be found in a rap song “Females Welcome” by Asher Roth.

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