Baseball Trivia: May 28, 1998 Intentionally Walked… With Bases Loaded
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It’s the bottom of the 9th inning and the sacks are jammed with 2 outs, your club is up by 2 runs with one of baseball’s greatest power hitters stepping up to the plate. Quite a pickle.
But when the Arizona Diamondbacks faced this situation in San Francisco against the Giants — bottom of the 9th inning, 2 outs, bases jammed with Barry Bonds stepping up to the plate, Diamondbacks manager Buck Showalter knew just what to do.
Baseball Library describes events;
Showalter orders reliever Gregg Olson to intentionally walk Barry Bonds to bring home the Giants’ 7th run.
Baseball Almanac picks up the action from here;
Brent Mayne batted next and lined out to right field on a 3-2 count and the manager was the hero.
Olson, who walked 6, including the intentional run-scoring walk, in 1 1/3 innings after taking over with 2 outs in the 8th inning was credited with the save.
Baseball library mentions further;
It is only the 4th bases-loaded intentional walk in major league history and the first since Swish Nicholson on July 23‚ 1944.
Jerome Holtzman, in his article, Free Pass—Players Who Were Intentionally Walked With Bases Loaded explains;
As far as can be determined, this occurred only three times during the 1900s and as such is worthy of a special examination. The recipients, in order, were Hall of Famer Nap Lajoie of the Philadelphia A’s in 1901, Bill Nicholson of the Chicago Cubs in 1944, and Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants in 1998.
And to the best of my knowledge, such a situation has yet to have come up in this century.
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