There were bugs in his mouth and under his shirt - “there was not a place or an orifice where they weren’t,” he said. “There were so many of them that it was just a weird noise. “It wasn’t like a buzzing sound like when a fly goes by your ear and you can hear it,” he said. The spray solved nothing, and when play resumed, Chamberlain found himself facing not only the Indians’ best hitters and 40,000 screaming fans, but more bugs than he had ever seen, or heard, in his life. Technically, back then, it was still illegal, but I mean Laz Diaz was letting me spray it everywhere.” “If that happened right now people would be going crazy,” Chamberlain said. Then the rest of the infielders sprayed themselves. Yankees trainer Gene Monahan trotted to the mound and sprayed Chamberlain with Off insect repellent. His fifth pitch went to the screen, allowing Sizemore to take second and prompting umpire Laz Diaz to halt play. “One of our guys called down to the dugout just to ask, ‘What the hell’s going on?’ And they were like, ‘There’s just a bunch of bugs everywhere.’”Ĭhamberlain, clearly rattled, issued a four-pitch walk to Grady Sizemore. “We just thought either he had something in his eyes or there was something going on out there that the trainers had to come out,” recalled former pitcher Jensen Lewis, now a member of the Guardians’ broadcast team. Out in Cleveland’s bullpen in center field, relievers had no idea what was wrong with Chamberlain, or why the ever-casual Jeter was wildly waving his arms every which way. It was as if the midges were hired by the Indians as an army of attack dogs. But every time he’d approach, he noticed a halo of midges forming around the pitcher. At shortstop, Jeter tried swatting them away, then thought about going to the mound. On the mound, Chamberlain was covered in them. “So you don’t know how you’re going to react.”Ī blot of bugs so large it could be seen on radar had infested the infield. “You can’t prepare for it,” Chamberlain said. There was no evidence to suggest that anything would change when he came back out for the eighth - until the arrival of the midges. The kid was electric and unhittable, quickly finishing off the Indians in the seventh. The Yankees led the then-Indians, 1-0, when manager Joe Torre removed Andy Petitte and handed the ball to a rookie sensation with a 100 mph fastball and 34 strikeouts in 24 innings. For the first six innings of Game 2 of the 2007 ALDS, the midges were out of everyone’s way, mingling like bar flies in the lights above what was then Jacobs Field. “I got through the warmup,” Chamberlain told The Athletic this week, “and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I’m just flicking them back and forth.” However, an expert voice weighed in, with a reminder that midges can be tricky little buggers. “If it’s going to be a problem for me,” Severino said, “it’s also going to be a problem for the hitters.” He will be opposed by Luis Severino, who shrugged off any concerns. McKenzie will stand atop the mound in Cleveland on Saturday for Game 3 of the ALDS while tasked with carrying on the legacy of the unflappable Fausto Carmona, the midge whisperer, whose ability to weather a tempest of pests was as impressive a Progressive Field feat as an Albert Belle walk-off homer or a Corey Kluber shutout. These two franchises are again adversaries, in the same round, bound for the same ballpark, where the midges await. 5, 2007, the bugs attached themselves to Chamberlain and he became eternally sewn to the storyline of the Bug Game. “Taking time, getting sprayed.”įifteen years ago last week, a battalion of midges disrupted Game 2 of the American League Division Series between Cleveland and New York. “Joba (Chamberlain) was literally out there like this,” McKenzie said, mimicking the frantic manner in which the former Yankees reliever repeatedly buried his face in his shoulder on the mound that night. His teammates weren’t as well-versed on the intruders, but McKenzie had flashbacks to an autumn night in 2007, when as a 10-year-old Yankees fan, he watched his hero, Derek Jeter, wave his hand in front of his face like a high-speed windshield wiper. He’d smush one and two more would appear. He tried to brush them off, but the stubborn nuisances refused to cooperate.
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