Charles Gipson-related research request
Hey, this came up in my book research — I was at a game where Gipson, playing right, went into the stands after a foul ball and just missed it. The crowd, thinking amazingly fast, caught the ball and Gipson at the same time and then pushed Gipson out on the field, ball in glove as if he’d snagged it. The ump was right there, unfortunately, so he caught it, but it was a brilliant piece of quick thinking by everyone involved.
The problem is I don’t know when it happened. I believe it was 2002, but I’m not sure. Research has turned up no mention of the play in game stories.
Did anyone else see this, or have a better idea of when this happened?
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Here’s Gipson’s game log from 2002. This lists 40 games he had an AB or run. He appeared in 79 games, though. One of the Retrosheet-savvy people will have to tease those games out.
Let me try something….
I found a reference to him going into the stands July 5 to catch a Corey Koskie foul, but it says he was unsuccessful.
That’s the best I can do with Lexis-Nexis.
Gipson was playing RF on July 5 and went into the stands to catch a Koskie foul. It’s in “Seattle’s Gipson goes all out in the outfield” by Bob Sherwin, published in the July 7, 2002 SeaTimes.
That’s freaking awesome, whether it worked or not. If that had happened at Fenway or in New York it would already be in several books.
Haven’t there been a couple of plays where Ichiro leaned into the stands and basically “stole” a foul ball out of the glove of a fan?
I’ve always wanted to see a fan do a glove pass from the stands (a la the glove flip you sometimes see turned at second) to turn a HR into a fly out; or, if they’re going to be an idiot and mess with a ball in play, flip it back from the corner so Ichiro can gun down a guy going from first to third (or at least turn a sure triple into a ground rule double). Assuming, of course, the ump doesn’t see it.
Yeah, well, this is going into my book.
Also: I wish I had lexis-nexis.
Anyway: the problem with games I’ve looked up is that they’re about actual catches, when this was a non-play. If I was writing a game story, I’d have worked it in, but it’s not there.
Well, you saw it from the stands. Do you have any idea if it was notable/visible on the TV coverage? I kind of get the impression that if it didn’t get picked up by the cameras the “working press” wouldn’t have seen it either. That July 5 game sounds like the most likely candidate, so if you can get a tape of it you should be able to easily FF and see if it shows up.
Is the ball dead once a fan touched it?
Were it so simple to find a four-year-old game tape.
Can you email Gipson? Does he have an agent?
Unfortunately he’s probably not doing much right now, I bet he’d reply to an email.
I miss Gippy.
Gippy > Bloomie
Gippy > Bloomie
I don’t know that I agree with that. Gippy’s lifetime OPS was 638, and much of that was in the Kingdome (Bloomquist’s is higher). Bloomquist is a better defensive infielder and better baserunner (on his career Gipson had 16 SB vs. 11 CS). I seem to recall that Gipson had a better arm.
Actually I take back the Kingdome part.
For purposes of this discussion, I really do not care about Gipson v Bloomquist. I need to find that game, not the relative merits of the two.
I thought they found it. You’re right, Gipson v Bloomquist is kind of a stupid discussion and I apologize.
Well, crap. The Mariners have the tape. MLB has the tape. Whatever network was broadcasting then (Fox?) has the tape. It’s pretty likely somebody here knows somebody in one of those places, and at the next level (somebody here knows somebody who knows the right person at one of those places) it’s almost certain. You’ve already taken the first step, putting the message into the internet bottle and sending it out on the ethernet; now you just have to pray to St Kevin of Bacon, patron saint of six-degree social topologies.
I did some searching of ProQuest in the 2002 range and found nothing of the sort.
I wonder why Gipson was playing rightfield. Ichiro played in 157 games that year, so if you can find a game where we either got blown out and Ichiro got pulled, or didn’t play at all…
Oops, here’s the Gipson game log.
And let’s narrow down the games some more. We know he played in RF in 13 of them.
This was at home, right? Then I can narrow to the following five games:
4/22 vs ANA (entered game in 8th)
4/27 vs NYY (started)
6/26 vs OAK (started)
7/5 vs MIN (started)
8/14 vs BOS (entered in 9th)
Anything more you remember? Day or night game? Early in the game or late?
Gipson appeared in 13 games in right field in 2002, starting 7 of them per ESPN.
Can’t get the dates on those games, at least I don’t think.
I stand mistaken. Nice work.
Ichiro didn’t play one of these games because he injured his knee (4/27?) He DH’d one game (6/26). The other I figure was rest.
Now that you have a date, see what the Times and P-I wrote about it on their free archives.
Also: I wish I had lexis-nexis.
Come work at UDub. You know you want to.
I really should have been a research librarian. Alas, I fell into web design and development back in the days of one-person web teams, and now I’m kinda stuck.
Oh, man, I’ve been waiting for someone to write the definitive Charles Gipson biography…
You know what I realized? I know where my dream job is. It’s at a desk in Cooperstown, NY, up the ramp from the main part of the Hall, past the broadcasters wing and the theater and the little gift shop.
Of course, it’s hard to get there when you’re 33.
Having spent a week in that little room, I’d like to submit that much of that job involves telling clueless researches to wear gloves, please, while handling the files, to keep the photographs sorted, and answering the most ridiculous questions imaginable (“Are there any players who’ve served and you know, killed people? Besides Ted Williams.”)
Which makes it a lot like almost every other reference librarian job, now that I consider it.
Also: we don’t have a date. We have a candidate date.
OK, next question: Does anyone have the hitting charts for those five games online? Or was no one mapping foul balls in 2002?
I remember that Charles Gipson had a fan web site. I’m sure the maintainer of that site probably knows the game of which you speak.
I think all those sites are dead — I can’t find one that’s been updated after 2004.
I will also say that I have tried to drop Gipson a line and have not heard back yet.
Weird … I’ve been doing some one research on ex-Mariners for the last several months, and more often than not I can find a phone number, e-mail address or agent contact info. But nada for Charles … he’s out of baseball this year, apparently, and seems to be doing night stocking at Target under an assumed name or something.
I think he’s coaching.
According to Retrosheet:
4/22: HR by Brady Anderson in the 6th
4/27: No HR
6/26: No HR
7/5: HR by Jacque Jones and Torii Hunter
8/14: No HR after Gipson came in
So, that leaves two games.
Ignore me. I forgot the foul ball part.
I can’t help with recollecting this moment, but I do remember another M’s rightfielder, Glenn Wilson, grabbing a ball out of the bullpen ballbag down the right field line and throwing it into the infield because he could not locate the fair ball that rattled down into the bullpen in the Kingdome.
I took Gipson on a Gipson Bloomquist earlier this year, but remembering that discussion it was something of a tossup. The Gipson plays I remember were both made good: the bullet throw off a turf bounce in Kaufman Stadium to get a runner at the plate, and him making a running catch in LF with his back to the plate, and jumping half up the wall for fun.
His agent will know if you can find a reference.
I found the same article about Gipson, but dated July 7th 2002. Its speaks of Gipson flying into the stands to try to catch a Koskie foul ball, but missing. Koskie hit a double late in the AB to start a 8 run Twin rally. The game was indeed July 5th, but the article must have been part of the big Sunday sports section.
From the article:
“Then Friday, playing right field, he went spinning heels over head into the right-field stands in a failed attempt to catch a foul pop-up by Corey Koskie.
“I knew it was close and I think I got a little timid,” Gipson said. “If I had been aggressive I would have caught it, but I might have broken my leg.”
He regretted that missed opportunity. Koskie later doubled to begin a winning eight-run rally.
“A play like that can change the momentum of the game. Notice a couple pitches later, there’s a double the other way. Then it’s a chain reaction,” he said. “Those are the type of plays that take the steam out of a team. If I could have caught it, maybe J.B. (James Baldwin) can pitch the next guy differently and we could have gotten out of that inning.”
I also got that off Lexis Nexis, thank you UW library access. I can email it to you if you want.
The Seattle P-I mentions the 8 run rally as in a Saturday July 6th article.
“Baldwin, with razor-sharp defense behind him, cruised through the first six innings, the AL Central leaders never getting a runner past second base. The Twins pounced on him in the seventh, however, opening the inning with a Corey Koskie double, an RBI single by Matthew LeCroy and a two-run homer by Jacque Jones.”
However, it mentions a failed home-run catch by Cameron and Gipson off the bat of Torii Hunter.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/baseball/77560_mari06.shtml
Finally, the July 4th 2002 game features Gipson climbing the wall in exictment of making a sweet catch.
ah, Gippy, I do miss him. Coaching in Texas, huh? must have grown out of the Astros connection– I think he is still a SoCal guy.
Wow, talk about resume padding by Gippy.
Did we carry Gipson and Luis Ugueto at the same time? How did we pull that one off?
#41: How did we pull that one off?
We didn’t.
In 2002, the M’s finished 3rd in the AL West, and Anaheim won the World Series.
Grr.
My cousin works for the M’s. I’ll see if he can dig up the July 5th game video and find out if that play happens in that game.
I think I’d be forced to cough up some USSM swag if you pull that off.
FYI, I just went through the Seattle Times archive for three days around each of the dates listed above. No specific mentioning of the event.
If Gipson is still coaching at that baseball camp, I can go stalk him easily. Its 45 minutes away from where I live and I need to head out that way on Saturday.
#47– and as we all know he is so unapproachable
So you don’t need Lexis Nexis to find the 7/7/02 article, its on the Times’ webpage. Anyway, good luck with the search. I will be away from my beloved Ms for 5 weeks. Poo.
as far as I can tell, the article about Gipson is the only mention of chasing Koskie’s foul ball….
How about another direction. One thing I know is that either Rick Rizzs or Dave Niehaus have broadcast every M’s game since like forever (almost). Could you contact one of them to see if they have any recollection? Sure, Niehaus’ recollection capabilities may be a bit fuzzed over, but Rizzs’, I’m sure, are probably hyperactive…
I talked with my cousin, and he said that he can try to find video evidence of this, but because of the Turn Back the Clock game on Sunday, he won’t have time to check until early next week. I’ll let you know what he finds out next week. Also, I do know Kevin Cremin, and if my cousin can’t find this out, perhaps Kevin will have a record of it somewhere, or maybe he can ask Rizzs, Niehaus, and everyone’s favorite, Fairly (who, by the way, eats hotdogs with no bun, and no silverware – he just holds the dog in his hand and dips it in mustard, all while attempting to announce a game – yeah, I think he’s a weirdo!).
That Fairly anecdote is almost as entertaining as the Gipson one.
maybe it’s his attempt to follow the Atkins diet
Fairly (who, by the way, eats hotdogs with no bun, and no silverware – he just holds the dog in his hand and dips it in mustard, all while attempting to announce a game – yeah, I think he’s a weirdo!).
No. He’d be a weirdo if he dipped it in ketchup.