Nomar leads off the Sox sixth with a ripped single. When Padilla goes 2-0 on Trot, pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre goes to the mound to calm him down (and stall). Padilla’s way off the plate, as if he’s afraid of lefties, and walks Trot. On a 1-1 count to Millar, Torre interrupts the flow of the game by bringing in Quantrill. It’s the old Cuban slowdown, but even in the Pan-American games, where the umps let you do anything, I can’t remember two mound visits on consecutive batters in midcount. After a five-minute delay for warm-ups and commercials, Millar singles to load them. On 3-1 Bill Mueller has a fat pitch to hit but skies it to center for an unsatisfying sac fly. Bellhorn strokes a wall-ball double, and it’s 9–6. Johnny singles to left—9–7. Because Tek got ejected, Mirabelli’s batting second, and we don’t have a backup catcher, so we can’t pinch-hit Youkilis for him. Mirabelli Ks, and Torre brings in Felix Heredia, who walks Ortiz to load the bases for Manny. Stottlemyre visits the mound again (their fourth visit this half-inning). Heredia goes 3-2 on Manny, who’s hit like crap this series, then misses with a pitch a good foot up and out. 9–8, and Nomar’s up, but look, what’s this, it’s Joe Torre plodding out to the mound. Another five-minute delay while Scott Proctor of the Columbus Clippers warms. Home-plate ump Bruce Froemming, who’s built like Violet in Willy Wonka after she turns violet and the Oompah-Loompahs roll her away, makes it easy for Proctor, giving him a first strike call on a ball nowhere near the zone, and after all the waiting and screwing around, Nomar’s pissed and just swings at anything (hey Joe, the tactic worked!) and strikes out to end what has to be the longest inning I’ve ever seen. One hour and seven minutes, according to Fox’s clock.

While I think the Yankee/Cuban National Team stuff is crap, and definitely unsporting, it’s legal. But it’s also the home-plate ump’s responsibility to control the game, and in the rule book there’s a powerful clause that says the umpire can penalize any behavior that he independently deems “makes a mockery of the game.” The classic example is running the bases backwards. I would submit to the league office that the slowdown not only makes a mockery of the game, it makes for bad TV, since that’s the only thing the league office seems to care about. Steroids, what steroids? (In other sports, not only are players banned, but their teams’ victories are retroactively forfeited and their championships taken away, their records expunged. Just a warning, Sheff, in case we ever have a real commissioner again.)