The end of summer Camp

I see this morning that onetime Braves righthander and present-day scumbag Rick Camp has been sentenced to prison for conspiring to steal money from a mental health institution.

Camp had a decent enough career in the big leagues, and was an excellent closer for a mediocre team for a couple of years. But his greatest moment is missing from that article, and everyone who saw it surely remembers it. Camp, you see, hit an 18th inning homer off Tom Gordon on the 4th of July 1985 -- by then, it was well into the 5th of July -- to tie an ultramarathon contest at 11-11. I was all of twelve years old, but I stayed up late to watch that freaky game, all the way to its conclusion at 3:55am.

Camp, a career .060 hitter at the time, was batting only because the Braves were out of players. According to at least one account from someone who's reviewed the film, Camp took two embarrassing swings to fall behind 0-2 with two outs before connecting for a solo shot into the left field seats. I've seen the clip in recent years, but it really doesn't convey the shock that I felt watching at home at the time. Camp promptly gave up five runs in the top of the 19th to lose the game, although the Braves made it interesting by countering with two in the bottom half of the inning. (The final was 16-13.) Atlanta residents reportedly believed the city was under attack when the Braves finally shot off their fireworks above the stadium as dawn broke over the city.

Camp was released, along with veterans Pascual Perez, Len Barker and Terry Forster, the following spring. Maybe that's when the trouble began for Camp. The Braves' housecleaning might have seemed geared toward a youth movement, although they signed Omar Moreno the same day. Guess not. Anyway it would be a few years before they fielded a really good team -- they lost 106 games in 1988, and still weren't very good in 1990 before going all the way to that fabulous Game Seven against Jack Morris in 1991.

Oh, to have that kind of energy again -- staying up all night for a mid-season ballgame. And if only pro athletes didn't so frequently turn out to be swindlers, crooks, wife-beaters and otherwise unsavory individuals once they get off the field. Bah on you, Rick Camp.


FMFM: One Never Knows, John Lewis's 1958 soundtrack for No Sun In Venice. It's a bit of an adventure sometimes for the MJQ, but generally it's spacious and mellow listening -- often kind of like a Satie gymnopedie. It's apparently a 1959 pressing (with "experimental" label), found in the $1 bin at Amoeba.