On Tuesday night, ESPN aired a fantastic 30 for 30 documentary entitled ‘Brothers in Exile’, detailing the journey to America from Cuba by brothers Livan and Orlando Hernandez. The feature was excellent, but there was one part of it that made my stomach turn – Game 5 of the 1997 NLCS, when Livan Hernandez struck out 15 Braves en route to a complete game victory.
The strike zone getting called by Eric Gregg was simply absurd. Look at this crap.
As an 11-year old watching this game with my dad, I was beyond furious. Gregg was calling pitches strikes for Hernandez that were in the other batter’s box! I shudder to think at what the Brooks Baseball strike zone map for this game would look like.
And while the Braves didn’t help Hernandez by uselessly flailing at pitches that they couldn’t hit with a telephone pole and going down swinging nine times, the tone was set early on by Gregg calling those pitches strikes. They’re going to be strikes anyway – why not strike to get the bat on the ball and maybe flick the ball into left field?
Final line: 9 innings, 3 hits, 1 run, 2 walks, 15 strikeouts. A brilliant performance by Hernandez, but one that will forever be tied to the late Gregg and his refrigerator-sized strike zone.
