Pat Hentgen is one of those baseball players that defines what a professional athlete is.
But Hentgen is done. He can hit the spots he wants to hit, but he brings nothing to the plate, neither blinding speed, nor tailing action on his pitches. As a result, his teammates get lots of fielding practice. Tonight's episode of watching the struggling Seattle Mariners look like the '27 Bronx Bombers against Hentgen was painful to watch.
I have no doubt that Hentgen will retire before the season's end. Only a plea from the club to hang on and let the crop of farm-grown hurlers germinate a little longer without having them brought up into the major league hot house will keep him going out there for the rest of the season. HE knows he's a fifth starter in reputation only.
Putting the team before his own interests has always been Hentgen's way. Stepping in for a sucking-out Roger Clemens in Boston is just one of the instances where he was willing to put it on the line whenever asked. Even when it shouldn't have been. He never blamed a teammate for something that went wrong out on the field. "I threw the pitch, didn't I?" He'd ask by way of taking the blame. He always stood up and took blame and shrunk into the background when credit was being tossed around.
Pat Hentgen is a good man. Good enough to be a Canadian. But he's done.
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