Henry Cotto

Re: Dan "The slow man" Wilson's inside the park homerun.

Not since the days of Henry Cotto (April 2, 1989-Aug. 24, 1993) have I seen a greater display of baserunning prowless. The inside the park homerun was chief amongst the various offensive weapons employed by the ever-dangerous Cotto. Although he only did it once (May 11, 1991), from that point on he was a constant threat to do it again everytime he came to the plate, and other teams knew it!

But the true story of Henry Cotto doesn't began here with an inside the park homerun (perhaps his greatest achievement), it begins on the rough and tumble streets of South Philadelphia. A sharecropper's son, Cotto learned to fight young and he learned to fight well. It was while he was soundly beating a young neighborhood girl with an ashen stick that his naturally sweet swing was noticed by a passing baseball scout. The scout, as played by John Lovitz, took an instant affinity to the young Henry and soon took him under his wing (i.e. flabby arm). Cotto saw baseball as a way out of the getto, and a way to support himself and his thrice pregnant under-age girlfriend, Lupita. But the innate fighting spirit that won him so much respect and so many friends in South Philly, proved to be a hinderence in the world of professional athletics. It was because of his stubborness and his refusal to "listen to any dumb-ass honky coaches", that he was drafted in the 603th round (even below Mike Piazza). But Cotto had faced challenges greater than this before, and it was soon apparent that this sparky little utility left-fielder was somehow missing the quit gene! (Because of his mother's recreational crack habit, it later turned out he was missing a lot of other crucial genes).

After adjusting to the cold of Calgary, Cotto thrived on a steady diet of cheap booze and cheaper women, and finally got the call up to the bigs. Beneath the tough exterior was shameless and notorious ass-kisser. Because of his propensity for brown-nosing, the Bill Plummer years (one) were good to him, and he saw a quite a bit of playing time. All of this came to a climax on one perfect 68-71 degree day in the Kingdome, with nary a cloud in sight. The day was May 11, 1991 and the Mariners were already in last place (never a team player, Cotto didn't didn't even know this, rather personal statistics dominated his view). In the third inning a fat pitch came rolling in from a fading Dan Quissenberry. That same sweet swing that had once been used on smaller and weaker children, was turned on the ball, sending it crashing off the outfield wall. Two outfielder misjudgements, one untimely fall, and an errant throw that should have been an error, later and Cotto was chugging around third as Sam Perlazzo waved him home. The only flaw to this fairy tale scene was the fact that Cotto's Mariner teamates, in a display of disgust over the constant ass-kissing and temper tantrums failed to greet the triumphant warrior upon his return from around the the perilous bases. As Cotto looked to the stands to share the glory with his faithful wife Lupita, even his sharp eyes could not penetrate the gloom under the 200 level behind the plate.

Thus we see, there is a story behind each story, and completely false lie behind each truth. This is that lie.

Next week in the series of Mariner utility left fielders: Rich Amaral, greasy left fielder by day, greasy used car salesman by night (his motto "You won't catch me stealing...from you!"). -Ian