gopher ball ,

Someone has to throw the gopher ball for an historic home run.

A game in which several home runs have been hit by both teams may also sometimes be described as "gopher ball."

But Logan gave up the gopher ball on the first pitch.

The fouls balls eventually added up to a gopher ball.

He showed flashes of his old self during his 40 games last year, but gopher balls were a major problem.

“The gopher balls really hurt tonight,” Randolph said.

Park, the Dodger pitcher, also deserves credit, though he undoubtedly wishes it had been someone else who served up the two gopher balls.

Both gopher balls were on “pitcher’s pitches.”

Angels' pitcher Ken McBride tees up the gopher ball in the 6th inning with one on.

One operative for a rival campaign said this morning that Giuliani "went yard on a gopher ball" by taking on Paul, but those homers count, too.

Branca did not express bitterness over the gopher ball, but began a friendship with Thomson that lasted into each man's old age, including many joint television appearances.

QUESTION: In baseball, when a pitcher gives up a home run, why is the pitch called a "gopher ball?"

Mr. Vincent interviews the pitcher who, in 1951, served up the most famous gopher ball in baseball history, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Ralph Branca.

As Burke rounded the bases, the fans stood and roared for Martínez, probably the most appreciative cheer for a home-team gopher ball in Shea Stadium history.

But Mr. Gonzalez lost whatever advantage he had gained when he opened the questioning by throwing Mr. Cutler gopher balls like "Was there a cover-up?"

Bert Blyleven of the Minnesota Twins, who set a major league record by giving up 50 home runs last season, is serving up gopher balls at an even higher rate this season.

Dave Righetti now needs space, where an occasional gopher ball isn't the end, where there's time to erase a deficit and a victory is solid and good (not the upside-down reliever's kind).

An ironic sidelight was that Mathewson (or his ghostwriter) had criticized Marquard in his newspaper column after Game 2, for giving up the gopher ball, only to fall victim himself the very next day.

But if a baseball slugger was indicted for offering an opposing pitcher $10,000 to serve up a gopher ball late in the season because one more homer would help him collect a $150,000 incentive clause, the sports world would howl.

United States District Court Judge Alice M. Batchelder, citing a lack of jurisdiction, let stand a ruling that wrongly being branded a "gopher ball" pitcher generally is not a serious enough matter to sustain a libel lawsuit.

Change for the Worse The main culprit yesterday was Josias Manzanillo, the pitcher summoned from Class AAA Norfolk on Monday to replace Jonathan Hurst, he of the 12.60 earned run average and abundant gopher balls.

Smith was one of the Mets on base at the time, and he had to be wishing that Orel Hershiser, the Dodgers' starter, would turn out to be as unlucky as he is, what with his tendency to throw gopher balls.

In a close victory over Minnesota, after the Golden Gophers had cut Michigan's lead to five points and advanced the ball to Michigan's 7-yard line, Volk "smashed through to down the Gopher ball carrier, and save the game on fourth down."

What's more, the two gopher balls caught by Caleb Lloyd, 20, came in successive at-bats in the fourth inning, and the first was a rare round-tripper off the bat of a pitcher, Mike Leake, who pitched his team to a 4-1 win over the visiting Atlanta Braves.