Let's consider some hidden gems last week in baseball annals:

Michael Buffer voice: "Let's get ready to ruminate..."

"I alone have escaped to tell thee"...(Coleridge-to-Tinker-to-No Chance, Wrigley Field 8/14/85).

Pity the poor Pirates --  The defense rests. And rests and rests. It's bad. They just finished a stretch of at least one error in 16 of the last 17 games through April 20. Defense wins ball games. The Pirates lose ball games. Get it? And what ya gonna do next? Punt.

Addendum: The Bucs were one of Branch Rickey's stops. Luck is the residue of design, he said. So, this is the residue of what?

Hidden Ball Trick Pony -- Ronny Paulino discovered an interesting twist to catching the damn baseball already. The old rawhide ripped into ye olde throat guard and Houdini-like disappeared within the chest protector trick. Yeah, it happens every spring. Err, Paulino was no worse for wear although he took a while to produce the ball.

Hidden Ball Trick Pony Part Two -- Maybe that's how they do things in Havana, but Yunei Escobar seemed almost shocked his hidden ball trick didn't fool anybody at Atlanta. That's not how we do it this side of the Sugar Curtain, Charlie.

Final fallout from Padres-Rockies 22 inning affair -- It only took 659 pitches for the Rockies to score that exciting -- if you like to watch cricket, shuffleboard, or bass fishing, paint dry -- 2-1 victory for the ages and it took the ages to do so, longest game in innings played since 1993 and eighth longest game in time played since 1920.  But that's not even the good part. They don't have no stinking curfew in the National League -- The AL won't even think about starting an inning after 1 a.m. -- but they sure as shooting do at Lindbergh Field San Diego. Flights are not supposed to leave after 3 a.m. However, regional airport authorities special sauced the baseball charters. Home team first, the Padres left around 3:15 a.m. for Phoenix, followed by the Rockies to Houston. Unfortunately, with the time change and all, The Rockaroos got to Oil Town at 7 a.m., just in time for morning glory commute. Funskis! Of course, air rage. Rockies scored six runs in the top of the 1st Inning and cruised to victory. Padres, not so much. Another day, another loss to the high flying D-Backs.

Torii Hunter Bentley IV Jr. , Sir --  The new Bentley was a real trip for the guy who came from the ghetto to make it big. But it didn't get very far. Rear-ended just a few blocks from the ballpark. A bit bruised and battered, nevertheless Hunter took the field and took it out on the Mariners (not so ancient, see Coleridge citation above) crashing into the fence as he robbed Richie Sexson of what would have been a game winning  home run in the 9th Inning.

Khalil Greene -- Something is rotten in the state of the normally sure-handed and steady shortstop. Two errors in barely a week. Strikeouts and not much else at the plate. He just plain looks distracted.   Time for some consummate zen, Mojombo.

And so it goes...

As I write this, around 12:30 a.m. Pacific Yadda Time, the Padres and Rockies attempt their 20th inning of play.

If this were Osaka, this game would be done.

But Its pretty little don't even try to score Petco and after 14 innings of no runs then a tease of the 15th, the longest game in major league baseball since 2003 is kind of sexy.

It's a classic case of you can't get there from ere. Kouzmanoff dives to his left and Brooks Robinson the ball hawks.

Styrike one and two. Diving catches. Bizarre calls. That's what it took to drag this classic contest into the late and early moondust.

One two three and three two one. They're gone. More innings. We can't get enough. No one dares blow this one.

The yin in the yang has tired. Troy Tulowitzki breaks his oh-for-seven with an eighth.

We go to the bottom of the 20th tied 1-1. Oh doctor. This is baseball real time. Next game is later today. In another state.

Defensive gems abound. The best two defensive shortstops in the National League unknown to the casual fans, Khalil Greene and Tulowitzki strut their stuff. Dead air and Petco's spacious park. The perfect storm for a return to 1968 style baseball.

Ah, if only they counted foul balls as points and scored a win that way. Or as in the most recent spring training call the game after, shall we say, 10?

Nah, they're going to play all night. Grab another bag of popcorn.

OK the taped-up rams head in the 17th was a nice touch. But it didn't work, obviously. Neither did the gris-gris and the voodoo hex in the 19th. Worlds have risen and crashed. People have been born and died.

And we are headed to the bottom of the 21st. Good. 

You may want to use this trivia question to win an iced tea bet at the local library.

Who are the four pitchers in Major League Baseball history to toss no-hitters in each league?

The first three are pretty good. Cy Young. Jim Bunning. Nolan Ryan. Start a rotation with that bunch, why don't you.

And then there's that elusive fourth man. Hideo Nomo who threw a no-no in that least likely of venues, the only one in fact in the history of Coors Field. Nomo repeated his feat for the Red Sox at Camden Yards. The first one there.

And now the Tornado is back.

Nomo's baseball history easily is as convoluted and downright different as his tortuously twisting delivery. A delivery so unusual that even in Japan, the land of weird fits of pitching fancy and mojo delivery gyrations, he was famously named the Tornado.

Nomo also broke the Japanese financial mold. He got an agent -- unheard of at the time -- who got him out of a contract on a technicality and did a dastardly deed considered dishonorable at the time. He defected, er, let's say, signed with the Dodgers. Since Nomomania -- not quite Fernandomania, but as with L.A.'s Japantown, a nice touch for a while -- he moved around quite a bit and had a solid U.S. career.

Which brings us to the present day as Nomo got back into the Major Leagues after a long hiatus. His usual Number 19 already was taken by Brian Bannister on the Royals, so the contrarian in Nomo went with Number 91. Get it?

Lo-and-behold, Nomo pitching and the matchup of the day in a way. Hideki Matsui came to the plate. Matsui's career with the Giants, Yomiuri division, began in 1994 just as Nomo nearly dearly departed Nippon. And Matsui is legend in Japan, sort of a Hank Greenburg type, dominant power hitter. He's been very, very good in the States, too, but his power numbers aren't quite the super-colassal-happy-fun numbers of his play in Japan. Yet an all-star here.

Matsui is considered a solid citizen, but has some considerable quirks. He likes women. Really, really likes women. He boasted about dating five women at one time. Perhaps that phase is over since he recently married. But he couldn't afford to divorce. After all, who would get his porno film collection? He is said to have more than 50,000 items and has spoken openly about the collection. Sorry, a bit too creepy for me, not the concept, but the size. And don't go there...

There it was Japanese Central League fans: Kintetsu Buffaloes v. Yomiuri Giants. Nomo versus Matsui. The Tornado versus Godzilla. All on a wet Kansas City field with about a dozen people in the stands somewhat outmaneuvered by the few dozen Japanese media people hanging around the dugouts.

Great moment. Not. The at-bat was short and sweet. Matsui hit a weak pop-up and so it went. Maybe next time Nomo will face Matsui's arch-rival, the inimitable Ichiro, and we'll see some fireworks.

Other Notes From the Field:

C.C. No. No. Sabathia looks way over the weight limit and someone is going to have to throw him back back back. His fastball looks very straight and he is getting bombed, and not at the local hoo-hooery hole in a good way...

Talk to the hand says Jake Peavy. Does anyone who saw his hands as he left the mound after shutting out the Dodgers doubt he was as covered with pine tar as George Brett's legendary bat? Put it this way. That wasn't magic mud fairy dfust. With the whole world watching the reprise against the Dodgers, he clearly was not doing the dirty hand dance. Looked clean and pitched well, but not quite as well as the previous effort.

The Arizona Diamondbacks. They are hot. And as such, they look like Colorado looked at the end of last year and then some. With all the Rock-stuff last year, people tend to forget the D-Backs won the most games in the National League. They look better than last year. Fittingly, the Rockies have been their latest victims.

But it's only April. So, all enjoy the Birds (Orioles, Jays, Cardinals, et a;) and the Bees (Salt Lake, best I could do) and all that jazz... 

TIME. Our final frontier. Time changes everything. Two illustrations from games played April 8 and April 9 are good reference points to this phenomenon.

Let us consider the examples of Bill Buckner and Jim Edmonds, then.

There's maybe just a little crying in baseball after all. So it went at Fenway Park on Tuesday, April 8 as Bill Buckner threw out the first pitch.

Yes, that Bill Buckner. The 1986 World Series gaffe and pariah aftermath has been well-dcumented. Buckner faced a lot of challenges. 'Nuff said.

Time and perhaps two world championships have sweetened the sour on the Buckner saga. He was a gritty high quality performer who could hit a ton and wasn't that bad a fielder when his bad legs let him.

The Fenway moment was just south of a Lou Gehrig luckiest man to be sure, but the standing ovation and tearful pitch were just right.. 

Then, there's the case of where have you gone Jim Edmonds? A timeless fan base bemoans your downfall.

The will is there, but injuries and time have done in the skills. It was painfully obvious at wind-swept  AT&T Field, San Francisco. No disrespect to Edmonds who, too, is a gritty all-out guy, but turn him over, he's done.

It's been a great career. But injuries and age have caught up to Edmonds. He has been slow in getting to balls he routinely caught in the past. He's been diving and coming up short. Going back back back to the fence and coming up short short way short. His power hitting numbers are now nil.

On Wednesday, April 9, Edmonds dropped a line drive. He struck out three times. And then, with the game on the line in the bottom of the 9th Inning, playing his traditional short center field, he failed to judge a fly ball that went over his head and scored the winning run.

Great career, but time has done in Lord Jim. And the Padres, who have a solid starting pitching corps, true, but not enough firepower or depth to compete with Arizona, the obvious frontrunner, Colorado or Los Angeles. And after losing two of three in San Francisco, maybe not even the Giants.

Time. OUCH. It changes everything. Lets go Browns!

It was bogus, but still a close call. Brad Lidge was ipso-facto coming off an injury lay-off. The bottom of the ninth inning, Cincinnati. Cole Hamels shut down the Reds. Tom Gordon actually had a 1-2-3 inning. Amazing considering his ridiculous path this year. So, Lidge dodged the first bullet. Brandon Phillips smashed a ball that died at the back of the back of the warning track. Two outs, one on and a somewhat routine fly ball down the left field line. The wind blew it a bit stand-ward and Toguchi ran up to catch the ball. Oops. He slightly overran it, held his glove out Willie Mays basket catch style and Dr. Strangeglove dropped it. Second and third. A semi-intentional walk to Ken Griffey later and a wild pitch later, the bases are loaded and so is the Philly Fanatic.

Baseball is back.

Lidge got the save after all.

Speaking of MVPs, how about Matt Holiday for the MVP -- again -- of April 6-7. After staring off slowly bang the drums, he hit his first home run of the year on Sunday and tied the game. Unfortunately, the rocks piled and Manny Corpas blew the game on a Coors-swept home run. On Monday, Holiday went on Spring Break and hit another home rune. This one won the game.