Milton Bradley, Ted Lilly Join the Club

I have been quite negligent with Sombrero Watch, missing out on Carlos Beltran’s efforts on Saturday (I’m letting you off the hook on this one, buddy), and Ryan Howard last week. Though a day late, invitations were extended to Milton Bradley and Ted Lilly to join the club. Our buddy Milton turned the trick on Monday night in the Rangers’ 2-1 win over the Yankees. He’s lucky Scotty Feldman and company pitched well enough to keep the Yanks bats at bay otherwise his five runners left on base would have looked a lot worse. Anyway, perhaps harder to do than injuring your knee while arguing with an umpire, Milton K’d three times against Mike Mussina. The other was against Jose Veras. Nicely done, Milton. We welcome you with open arms.

The other inductee from Monday night would be Ted Lilly. I had to wrestle with this one greatly before giving my blessing. Early on I made the call to keep all pitchers because they don’t really count, but Ted Lilly is the exception. I am proud to announce that Ted Lilly is the first member of the club to achieve the Platinum Sombrero. Not only is it remarkably difficult to achieve the Golden Sombrero, imagine how tough it is to go Platinum. Especially when you consider that Lilly’s a pitcher; how many pitchers even get five at-bats in a game without getting pinch hit for? For those two reasons, Lilly was inducted.

Honorable mentions from Monday go out to Jason Repko, Marcus Thames, and Jason Michaels who all punched out four times in five at-bats. Better that you all didn’t turn the trick — I’m not so sure we would’ve had room for you anyway.