Garth Brooks Is No Hit for Padres
Tuesday, March 02, 1999. Associated Press
Story by Story by Bernie Wilson

PEORIA, Ariz. - First things first for Garth Brooks.

``You might want to get a helmet,'' San Diego Padres manager Bruce Bochy told the country singer as he headed out for his only at-bat in the club's intrasquad game on Tuesday.

Five pitches later, Brooks was back in the dugout, apologizing to his teammates for striking out on a neck-high fastball from non-roster right-hander Salvador Rodriguez.

He didn't deliver a hit, but he at least knew what was going on out there. He even managed a couple of foul balls.

``It was cool,'' Brooks said a few hours later, when most of his teammates were long gone for the day, but he was still in uniform.

``I guess four out of the five pitches I was proud of. The last one I wasn't. That's the one I'll remember. I was there. That's why I was apologizing to my teammates. The guy on first has to be moved over and it was my job to do it.''

After whiffing, Brooks tapped the front of his helmet with his bat and motioned toward Rodriguez, 24, who played in the Mexican Leagues last year, as if to say, ``Nice job.''

When Brooks got back to the dugout ``he said he was sorry,'' said scout Jeff Gardner, who was managing Brooks' team. ``He's such a good guy. He honestly feels like he let us down by striking out.''

Heck, Brooks even apologized to reporters later on.

``I knew what I was doing. He just brought it a little harder than he did the first one,'' said Brooks, who's in camp on a non-roster basis to live out his fantasy and help kick-start his baseball-related charitable foundation. ``He bettered me. He shook it off twice, so I knew he was coming with something I hadn't seen. I'm sorry guys, I apologize to you, too. I don't know what the hell I was thinking. It was clearly a ball.''

When he makes a mistake in batting practice, Brooks usually tells pitchers, ``Pretty pitch,'' ``I'm sorry'' or ``My fault.''

This was his first real game situation. Brooks tried to take Rodriguez's second pitch to right field, but fouled it into the screen covering the first-base dugout. He hit a weak foul ball down the third-base line, then took ball one.

``I'm not proud of the statistic, but I am proud of the at-bat,'' said Brooks, who admitted he'd be thinking about it for a while.

``This is going to be my hardest part of the game right here. Because if every at-bat I remember as well as this one, I'm never going to get to the next one. I got to let it go. It's hard for me.''

Said Bochy: ``I didn't expect any more. Actually there was a pretty good slider, and he made contact to stay alive there. He probably wish he would have taken a swing at the first pitch (a called strike). But he had a couple swings in. A lot of hitters were overmatched today.''

Brooks did better with his glove, cleanly handling his only chance in left field - a single by Gary Matthews Jr. Brooks even hit the cutoff man.

``I'm real glad that my one field thing wasn't an error,'' he said.

Bochy said Brooks would likely see action in B games and split squad games, and might play in some minor-league games so he'd get 4-to-5 at-bats in a row.

Brooks said he'd love to bat against intimidating lefty Randy Johnson of the Arizona Diamondbacks this spring.

``You might as well go against the best,'' he said.