"SHUT UP, BOB":

Bruce Gray was annoyed and angry and more than a little confused. 

With boos cascading around Labatt Park and empty beer cans and hot dog wrappers being hurled in his direction, Gray jogged toward the mound, where his son, Brett, was on the verge of completing one of the most incredible pitching performances in baseball history.  

Brett had already struck out a whopping 25 batters for the London Werewolves and only one out remained in the ninth inning of this Frontier League contest. Pirates farmhand Ray Necciai is the only professional pitcher ever to strike out more in a nine-inning game, ringing up 27 in 1952 in the Appalachian League, and the MLB record of 20 was first set by Roger Clemens in 1986. 

Bruce, the team's pitching coach, had been ordered by manager Andy McCauley to make that visit to the mound, and he begrudgingly complied. 

"I had no idea what was going on," Bruce said. "I'm thinking, 'Why am I out here? I'm going to be the scapegoat.' I had no idea." 

McCauley didn't know, either. League commissioner Bill Lee, in town to present the Werewolves with the 1999 championship banner, didn't know. Catcher Tony Girod, team president/GM John Kuhn and TV play-by-play man Doc Palmer? All clueless. Judging by the fans' reaction, they seemed convinced Bruce was out there to pull his son from the game, for some reason they couldn't comprehend.  

Only Brett and his fiancée Keely, who had been summoned from her job managing the beer garden for the last inning, knew the truth.  

"My dad gets to the mound," Brett said with laugh that's certainly as mischievous now as it was then, "and he goes, 'What do you want? This is ridiculous.'" 

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