Mitch Williams threw baseballs very hard. Some of the time, he even knew where they were going. But in 1989, he put together a fine season even with a high walk rate (5.7 per nine innings), and closed out quite a few wins.
One of those was September 18, a key game in the pennant race — but not until after some unintended hilarity.
Let’s set the stage. The Cubs were in control of the N.L. East by now, but still needed a few more wins to clinch. Entering the game at Wrigley on this date, they led the division by five games over the Cardinals and had a magic number of nine.