The Washington Post - USA (2021-10-25)

D2 EZ M2 THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, OCTOBER 25 , 2021

BASEBALL

Cardinals to promote

Marmol to manager

The St. Louis Cardinals plan to
announce Monday that bench
coach Oliver Marmol will be
promoted to replace fired
manager Mike Shildt, according
to a p erson familiar with the
decision.
The Cardinals dismissed
Shildt, the former National
League manager of the year, o n
Oct. 14, a week after St. Louis lost
to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the
wild-card game. The Athletic first
reported Sunday night that
Marmol would be introduced the
next morning.
Marmol, 35, was an infielder in
the Cardinals’ minor league
system from 2007 to 2010. He
coached and managed in the
minors until 2017, when he joined
the major league staff as first base
coach.

GOLF
Bernhard Langer became the
oldest winner in PGA Tour
Champions history Sunday at 64,

beating Doug Barron with a s ix- foot birdie putt on the first hole of a pl ayoff at the Dominion Energy Charity Classic in Richmond. The German star won for the 42nd time on the 50-and-over tour and the first time since March 2000. At 64 years 1 m onth 27 days, Langer broke the age record of 63 years 5 months 4 days set by Sco tt H och in 2 019. Langer closed with a 3-under- par 69 to match Barron at 14- under 202 on the Country Club of Virginia’s James River course. Barron also finished with a birdie in a r ound of 68.... Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama had three birdies in five holes on the back nine and eagled the 18th f or a five-stroke victory in the PGA Tour’s Zozo Championship in Chiba, Japan. Matsuyama finished with a 6 5 and a 1 5-under total of 265. Americans Brendan Steele (66) and Cameron Tringale (69) tied for second at 10 under.... Jin Young Ko birdied her first playoff hole with fellow South Korean Hee Jeong Lim to win the BMW Ladies Championship in Busan, South Korea.

The LPGA Tour said Ko is proje cted to become world No. 1 with the win, overtaking American Nelly Korda.... In Santa Ponsa, Spain, Jeff Winther of Denmark shot an even-par 70 to finish 15 under and win the European Tour’s Mallorca Open by one stroke.

AUTO RACING Max Verstappen held off Formula One title rival Lewis Hamilton over the final thrilling laps of the U.S. Grand Prix in Austin to win his eighth race of the season and double his lead in the championship standings. Verstappen, who entered the Circuit of the Americas with a s ix- point lead over Hamilton, l eads the seven-time champion by 12 points with five races left. Hamilton in his Mercedes was bearing down on Verstappen over the final 18 laps and had cut the Red Bull driver’s lead to less than one second by the final lap but couldn’t make the pass at the end. The event drew a n estimated 140,000, including tennis star Serena Willi ams, golfer Rory McIlroy and actor Ben Stiller.

TENNIS A n apparent about-face on border entry requirements for the Australian Open may allow unvaccinated players to compete at the first major of 2022 after 1 4 days in quarantine. Last week, government leaders said players who had not received two doses of a recognized coronavirus vaccine were unlikely to get visas for the Jan. 17-30 tournament. Early Monday, a l eaked email from the WTA to its Players’ Council suggested unvaccinated players probably would be granted v isas but would have to quarantine for two weeks.

MISC. S wiss skier Marco Odermatt edged f irst-run leader Rol and Leitinger of Au stria by 0.07 of a second to win the season-opening men’s World Cup giant slalom in Solden, Austria. Zan Kranjec of Slovenia was one-tenth of a s econd behind in third. American River Radamus, 23, finished sixth for his be st World Cup result.... Officials were wrong to wipe

DIGEST

out what would have been a game-winning two-point play in overtime by Harvard after a replay review awarded Princeton a timeout, the Ivy League said. Princeton won Saturday’s game, 18-16, in five overtimes. After Jack Smith hit Kim Wimberly with a pass to convert the two-point play in the third overtime, replay officials ordered a review to see if Princeton Coach Bob Surace called a timeout

before the snap. They ruled he did and replayed the down. Harvard scored again, but that play was called back because of an offensive penalty. On its third try, Harvard was stopped, and the game went two more overtime possessions for each team. The league said officials erred because a timeout can only be awarded by on-field officials before the ball is snapped. — From n ews services

TELEVISION AND RADIO NBA 7:30 p.m. Washington at Brooklyn » NBC Sports Washington, NBA TV, WTEM (980 AM) 10:30 p.m. Portland at Los Angeles Clippers » NBA TV NHL 7 p.m. Washington at Ottawa » NBC Sports Washington Plus, WJFK (106.7 FM) NFL 8:15 p.m. New Orleans at Seattle » ESPN, ESPN2 SOCCER 1 p.m. Turkish Super Lig: Galatasaray at Besiktas » beIN Sports TENNIS 5 a.m. ATP: Vienna Open and St. Petersburg Open, early rounds; WTA: Courmayeur Ladies Open and Transylvania Open, early rounds » Tennis Channel WOMEN’S HOCKEY 7 p.m. Canada at United States » NHL Network COLLEGE GOLF 3 p.m. East Lake Cup, individual championship » Golf Channel

choose to believe. “It’s about fandom, conspiracy, rumor, innuendo and how much the truth matters,” executive pro- ducer Peter Moses said. “This has been a really cool project for all of us to kind of ask those questions of ourselves as we’re making it, and I hope that those conversa- tions that we’ve had are something that people can connect with outside of whether this rumor is true.” As baseball fans who wor- shiped Ripken and lived their lives according to the Oriole Way growing up, Dingman and Montandon were familiar with the rumor, but neither gave it much credence. Then, in early 2020, Montandon attended a par- ty where the writer and editor struck up a conversation with an off-duty police officer who claimed the whole thing was true. The chance encounter prompted dozens of interviews in search of answers. Dingman has long had a fasci- nation with “interrogating the

difference between lore and fact.” For the past five years, he has hosted the “Family Ghosts” podcast, in which he investigates se- crets, myths and legends about mysterious family members passed on from generation to generation. Dingman said he and Montandon, who met in 2014, were apprehensive about pursu- ing this particular project, not only because they were concerned about reopening old wounds for the people involved but also because they feared what they might uncover about Ripken, their childhood hero and the personifi- cation of integrity. “We remain conflicted,” Montandon said in a phone interview. “At no point in this reporting journey have we been like, ‘Okay, we’re absolutely doing the right thing here.’ That’s part of the story. It’s complicated business tear- ing away at your idols.” Rather than gossip-mongering, Dingman and Montandon take a careful, reporter’s approach to ex-

amining the story. For a rumor that originated before social media, this one features a good deal of source material. Costner was photographed with Cal and Kelly Ripken at the “Dances With Wolves” premiere at the Kennedy Center in 1990, and the actor took batting practice at Baltimore’s Memorial Sta- dium in July 1991. When Ripken announced his retirement in 2001, sports radio host Chuck Booms rehashed the rumor, which began circulating in the days following the postponement, during a segment on Fox Sports Radio’s “Kiley & Booms” show. An outraged Costner got word of the discussion and called into the show the next day to offer a deni- al. “If there is something alleged, I’d love to see someone come forward,” Costner said, in part, according to the Los Angeles Times. “No one will, because they don’t have the story to do it. There would be big money for a story like this, but it simply is not true.”

BY SCOTT ALLEN

On Aug. 14, 1997, a partial elec-
trical failure at Oriole Park at
Camden Yards affected a bank of
lights along the first base line and
led to the postponement of a
game between the Baltimore Ori-
oles and Seattle Mariners. Beyond
leaving the sellout crowd and
players from both teams frustrat-
ed, the bizarre incident sparked a
salacious rumor involving Cal
Ripken Jr. and Kevin Costner that
persists to this day.
A common version of the ru-
mor, which Ripken and Costner
have denied and fact-checking
website Snopes declared to be
false in 2001, goes something like
this: On the day of the postpone-
ment, Ripken allegedly found his
then-wife, Kelly, in bed with Cost-
ner, and an altercation ensued.
According to legend, b ecause he
was either injured or in police
custody as a result, the Iron Man
was unable to make it to the
ballpark on time, so someone in-
tentionally tampered with the
lights to preserve his record con-
secutive games played streak.
The details of that night in
Baltimore nearly 25 years ago and
the apocryphal tale it spawned
are the subject of a narrative pod-
cast set to be released Monday
and hosted by die-hard Orioles
fans Sam Dingman and Mac
Montandon. In the series, aptly
titled “The Rumor” and produced
by Blue Wire, Dingman and
Montandon take a serious and
satirical look at the debunked
narrative while simultaneously
exploring deeper — and often per-
sonal — themes related to fandom
and the mythologies people

Costner told Booms he had met Kelly Ripken twice and had “talked to her for a total of about 10 minutes.” He also said he had never been to the Ripken home. Blue Wire researcher Mariam Khan spent months tracking down the audio of Costner’s interview, but for reasons that remain unclear, after Fox Sports Radio initially granted Dingman and Montandon permission to use it in their podcast, the network chan ged its mind. Ripken addressed the rumor during a 2008 interview with Neal Conan on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation.” The question came in the form of a listener email from Pat- rick in Jacksonville, Fla., who add- ed, “Why, if the story goes the way some of us had heard it, real O’s fans can’t blame you for it.” “It’s easy to check the facts of that one,” Ripken, who broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games played record in September 1995, said. “I remember it very well. The bank of lights went off, and Randy Johnson was pitching for the Se- attle Mariners. And we were de- ciding what to do about that. Was there enough visible light out there to actually see a guy throw- ing over 100 miles per hour? The bank was just over our dugout. And I physically went out and tested it for the umpire. I was in discussion with the umpires. I was definitely there. I was ready to play.” That’s all true. Newspaper ac- counts describe Ripken playing catch with Orioles infielder Jeff Reboulet around the time a decision to postpone the game was made after 9 p.m., but the lack of understanding about what

caused the electrical failure only fuels the speculation that foul play was involved. Sherman Ker- bel, director of facilities management for the Maryland Stadium Authority, told The Washington Post that the outage was “a new phenomenon.” Cal and Kelly Ripken divorced in 2016, and Cal remarried in

If the Hall of Famer holds a
grudge against Costner for al-
leged past transgressions, it ap-
parently hasn’t affected what he
thinks of his acting. In a 2 017
interview with The Post, Ripken
said his favorite baseball movie
was “Bull Durham,” in which
Costner plays a veteran minor
league catcher.
Through their representatives,
Ripken and Costner declined to
participate in the podcast.
“Obviously, we would feel like
it’s the most complete version of
the story to have their input,”
Dingman said.
While attempting to determine
what really happened A ug. 14,
1997, is the thread that binds “The
Rumor,” Dingman and
Montandon also ruminate on
Ripken’s consecutive games
streak, why these sorts of stories
are passed on and how so many of
their childhood memories are
connected to their shared love for
a team and deep admiration for a
player they never really knew.
What would happen if they man-
aged to uncover the truth? Did
they even want to?
“We feel like we ask a pretty
provocative question with the sto-
ry,” Dingman said, “and we feel
like we deliver a pretty satisfying
answer.”
[email protected]

Podcast revisits a r umor about Ripken, C ostner and a mysterious power outage

MIKE THEILER/REUTERS BEN STANSALL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES A new podcast l ooks back on the 1997 rumor that actor Kevin Costner, right, was caught in bed with Kelly Ripken, then the wife of Orioles star Cal Ripken Jr., on the day of a postponed game in Baltimore.

ethical failure of signing him, Bauer was a talented pitcher but a $34 million-per-year gamble not worth taking. It may be reductive to tie the Dodgers’ failure to their gloominess. It’s hard to play with joy when Logan Webb is mowing through your lineup or Drew Smyly is dotting curveballs at the knees or Eddie Rosario won’t stop destroying baseballs. No one is happy when l osing. It may also seem wrong to call their season a failure. They won 112 games in the regular season and playoffs, and on a night when they could have wilted, they scored 11 runs to force Game 6. If Buehler didn’t miss with a cutter in the zone to Rosario in the fourth inning of Game 6, the Dodgers may well have been playing Game 7 on Sunday night. But the Dodgers spent $260 million on their payroll with only one goal. It’s also true that treating players like cogs makes it more difficult for them to respond to adversity. The Dodgers will be back. They are a player-development machine with the financial resources and willingness to outspend all rivals. Their acquisition of Turner provided them with a talent upgrade this season and also insurance at shortstop in 2022 should Corey Seager sign elsewhere in free agency. Kershaw and Scherzer are free agents, but the Dodgers should have Dustin May back for the stretch run of next season. When the Dodgers return to the postseason, they can find a lesson in their title defense. When you have the best players, just let them play. [email protected]

talent edge in practice. They never recovered from the ill-conceived, shameless signing of Bauer. The Dodgers could not have known he would be accused of punching a woman unconscious during rough sex, allegations that put him on MLB’s exempt list from July 2 on. They did know he had targeted women with abuse over social media and had a record of misogynistic statements. They knew he had an abrasive personality and a history of insubordinate behavior, such as heaving a baseball over the center field fence when his manager removed him. Aside from the

liner landed in front of Lux during a Br aves rally in Game 4, Urías lifted his arms on the mound, looking into center field. So it went for the best team money could buy run by the smartest guys in the room: frustration built upon frustration. The f ront office took its obsession with finding small edges too far. The Dodgers had all the advantage required through sheer talent. Allowing that talent to play with confidence should have been the priority. By rearranging roles, the Dodgers maximized their situational edge in theory while diminishing their

field for much of the NLCS. “If you would have told me a couple months ago that I’d be playing in the outfield in the playoffs,” Lux told the Los Angeles Times, “I’d have said you were crazy.... There is only so much you can replicate in practice. Still learning a lot out there on the fly. Looking at it as a challenge.” Lux has the tangible attributes — athleticism, arm strength, instincts — to play outfield. But baseball players are more than walking collections of attributes. Lux had to play with the pressure of learning a new position under the harshest glare. When a soft

of relief in a decisive NLDS Game 5, then threw another relief inning in the NLCS before he got shelled in Game 4. Scherzer noted his “dead” arm after a short start that followed his appearance as a closer in Game 5 of the NLDS. The Dodgers’ handling of their pitching staff took a physical toll, as Manager Dave Roberts acknowledged. For a be tter example of how difficult it can be to play for the Dodgers, consider the season of Gavin Lux. A former No. 1 prospect in his third season, Lux began the year as the Dodgers’ everyday second baseman. When he scuffled, the Dodgers sent him down. For most franchises, Lux would have been accruing service time and adjusting in the majors. The Dodgers’ depth and resources, which they used to acquire Trea Turner, meant Lux was exiled for portions of the year to Class AAA Oklahoma City. “It’s pre tty easy to look around the league and say like, oh, yeah

... maybe on this team I wouldn’t
have got sent down, obviously,”
Lux said t his postseason. “But
there’s a l ot of really good people
here to learn from, a lot of really
good players to learn from and
guys who have been around and a
lot of superstars, future Hall of
Famers. So for me it’s like, it ’s
looking at it as a blessing as
opposed to the other way around.”
In September, the Dodgers
heaped another challenge on Lux.
He played outfield for the first
time as a professional at
Oklahoma City, one appearance in
left and another in center. When
he returned to the majors in mid-
September, Lux had become an
outfielder. He started in center

undermine that talent.
It would be easy to say it was
just not the Dodgers’ year because
of injuries. But the Braves played
without supernova outfielder
Ronald Acuña Jr. and top pitcher
Mike Soroka, among other losses.
The series illuminated the basic
difference between the Braves and
Dodgers. The Dodgers tried to
manipulate the game. The Br aves
simply played it.
A joylessness shrouded these
Dodgers. The Boston Red Sox
pushed one another in a shopping
cart, the B raves rallied around a
reserve who brandished pink
plastic swords, and Carlos Correa
tapped his wrist to let his Houston
Astros teammates know October
is his time. When Dodgers players
mobbed one another after
outlasting the San Francisco
Giants, it felt less like an
outpouring of elation than the
release of tension.
The apparent exhaustion could
have come from several sources:
facing the toll of trying to repeat,
bearing the burden of being
heavily favored, sifting through
the wreckage of the front office’s
decision to sign Bauer,
withstanding season-ending
injuries to Max Muncy, Justin
Turner and franchise talisman
Kershaw. In the playoffs, it may
have also come from how the front
office handles its roster. When
management treats players like
interchangeable widgets, baseball
feels to players more like work and
less like a game.
The focus of the Los Angeles
approach has mostly landed on its
pitching staff. Julio Urías, a 20-
game winner, pitched four innings

ON BASEBALL FROM D1

ON BASEBALL

In playoffs, Dodgers turned advantages into burdens and undermined their talent

JOHN BAZEMORE/ASSOCIATED PRESS The Dodgers’ repeat bid ended Saturday after they threw together another unsuccessful pitching plan.

The Washington Post - USA (2021-10-25)

Get our desktop app

Company

Features

Documentation

Resources