Miracle on Grass

by David Fanucchi

“That was the first time in my life that I had ever seen a guy score a run after being out twice on the basepaths,” said Mienkiewicz jokingly. “Arguably, he could have easily been called out at first base, but the call went our way. And then again at third, in which it had looked like he might have been out when he overslid the bag. Those calls going in our favor were just more signs that pointed to us being a team that was going to do something special. You just had a feeling like it was our time to shine.”

“It was brutal, I couldn’t sit still in the locker room. I had to do something, so I went and took some swings in the batting cage,” said Neill. “It was raining, and you just didn’t have a good feeling about the game. You’re nervous, and that was the most tense game we played, in my opinion. For us to have gotten that far, if we were going to get a shot at beating Cuba in the gold-medal game, we had to win. At least if we got to the gold-medal game and got beat, that’s what people probably expected of us. But if we had gotten beat by Korea, that would have been devastating. Just like the semifinal the year before against Mexico, the nerves were so high.”

remember immediately thinking to myself, ‘Okay, I’m swinging away now. How have you elevated the ball against a sidearm pitcher before in your career? Let’s get out in front of an off-speed pitch and see what happens.’” As Lasorda and Smith spent a few minutes arguing with the first-base umpire over the critical pickoff call of Dawkins, Mientkiewicz took the moment to collect himself and his thoughts. “I was thinking that I was still ahead on the count, and that I had gotten that big hit in the seventh, and right then, something just came over me, and the game slowed down. I’ve never had a two-week window in my life, the way those two weeks in Sydney were for me. No matter what I had, no matter what I saw in my mind or thought might happen, the game was slower than it had ever been in my entire life, my entire career. And I remember standing there in that at-bat thinking, ‘I can

So when it went over the wall, I was so pumped. I rounded the bases, and I remember yelling as I passed Omar Linares at third base, ‘That’s right, we came to play tonight, mother fucker!’”

Then in the top of the fifth, Team USA added to their lead, finally touching Ibar for some runs. When he walked Mientkiewicz to lead off the frame, catcher Pat Borders—who had battled back from his injured ankle to make the start catching Sheets behind home plate—then ripped a double to the right-center field gap, easily scoring Mientkiewicz to make it 2-0. Borders was then thrown out at third base on a bunt attempt by Adam Everett, but Abernathy followed with a base hit that put runners at the corners, with only one out.

With Pat back there making things happen, it was pretty special. When I was warming up in the bullpen and I saw Pat come walk out there to catch me, it was a pretty calming feeling. Nothing against Marcus (Jensen), but Pat had been through the battles. That’s why we had him on the team, and that’s who I wanted catching that game for me.”

his allotted pitch count. “All year in the minor leagues, my pitch-count max was set at 85, but for some reason when I had gotten to Australia, the Brewers had dropped it to 75,” said Sheets. “So I was pretty disappointed about that, because I was hoping they’d bump it up to 90 or 100 for the Olympics. So I called the Brewers office back in Milwaukee from this little cell phone we had while we were training on the Gold Coast, and Dean Taylor bumped it back up to 90 for me.” Sheets had been

“I saw Bob Watson sitting behind home plate, when it was getting late in the game, and he stood up and hollered to me, and started throwing his hands out with the pitch count on Sheets,” said Lasorda. “He wanted me to take him out. And I said, ‘Sit down, Bull. I ain’t taking this guy out of the game even if God tells me to. He’s pitching all nine innings.’”

“I don’t know how many pitches I threw, but it couldn’t have been much more than 90. Those were pretty quick innings, so I don’t think Lasorda could have taken me off that mound,” said Sheets. “Even if he’d come out to the mound to get me, it didn’t matter, you know? Because I was living in the moment, man, and it was a special moment. You don’t cheat yourself out of something like that. People might have said I shouldn’t have stayed in the game, and that I hadn’t thrown a complete game all season to that point. But that was something you never forget for the rest of your life, so there was no chance that I was coming out of that game, as long as we were ahead.”

“Everybody had set the Cubans as the standard for this sport,” right fielder Ernie Young said. “But this is our sport. Baseball was started by us and it’s played by us. And now we’ve won the gold medal. These were the best games of my life, and if I don’t ever play again, I’ll be happy I was able to play in this game tonight.”

“Well, you know when they said that the coaches don’t get medals, I got my medal when I saw them put those gold medals around my players. I got my medal when they played the National Anthem. I got my medal when they not only played the National Anthem, but when they raised the American flag, that’s when I started to cry. And when they played our National Anthem, I knew that we had done something. We had won for our country. I told people, even before I went over there, before I knew who we had on our team, how big this was going to be. I said, ‘It’s bigger than the World

“It was absolutely the best tournament in international baseball history,” Seiler said. “There’s no question, and I don’t say that just because the United States won the gold.”

“It’s just a unique experience, and there’s nothing like it anywhere else in the game,” Seiler said. “When Pat Borders, a 12-year big-league veteran, tells you what a great time he’s had and that it was one of his best experiences in baseball, that tells you we’ve done something right.”

“Such a special night, one that I’ll never forget,” said Alderson. “It ranks right up there with some of the greatest things I’ve ever accomplished in the game of baseball, for sure, including the World Series win with Oakland in ’89. I was lucky enough to have my parents there with me that night in Australia, and was really proud that my dad was able to witness that game.”

Pat Borders—who had been steamrolled at home plate in the pool-play game, injuring his ankle—showed what a true professional he was when he gave away the catching gear he had used during the Games to the Cuban team. He understood that those players had far less access to quality equipment than he did, and therefore it was far more valuable to them.

“I was able to speak to a few of the Cubans in Spanish, and one of their players told me that Fidel Castro had promised every player on their team each a brand-new car and a new house that they could live in with their families, if they had beaten us that night,” said Rodriguez. “That was so shocking to hear, that they had lost much more than a baseball game. They had lost the chance for a better life.”

the headline on the sports page of Gramma, the island’s official newspaper, read, “Is it the End of the World?”

a special pregame ceremony along with famous Brewers and Milwaukee Braves of the past including Hank Aaron, Sheets threw out the first pitch in front of a sold-out crowd, and received a standing ovation.

“The Brewers called us and offered us a flight to Milwaukee to meet up with Ben, because we hadn’t seen him yet and he hadn’t had a chance to come home to Louisiana,” said Betty Sheets, Ben’s mother. “So I got my sister-in-law, my sister, and my girlfriends together, gave them some money, and told them to decorate my house. I wanted to have food, refreshments, and a big party when we got back. I wanted a homecoming, and they were all in charge of that.”

“When he called home from Australia and told us that he was pitching the gold medal game, I thought ‘Well, we’re gonna need a big banner in front of the house, because we’re going to have ourselves a gold medalist.’ So I went ahead and ordered one in red, white, and blue with stars all over it that said, ‘Home of Olympic Gold Medalist Ben Sheets,’ and a second one that read ‘Proud parents of Olympic Gold Medalist Ben Sheets.’ I put that one on the back of our truck and we started driving all over town with it.”

John Cotton could be called the true “Crash Davis” of his time. Over his 15-year career, he played in 1,530 games in the minor leagues, without ever appearing in a single major-league game. After Sydney, Cotton played one more season in the minors with the Dodgers, Pirates, and Expos before finishing up his career with two seasons in the independent leagues. He has since retired and is now a fireman, living with his wife, Ronna, and son, Jackson, in Missouri City, Texas.