Betty Finnegan made the 5 1/2-hour drive from Fort Worth, Texas, to Springdale with a friend on Aug. 31 to watch the last two games of the season for the Northwest Arkansas Naturals. Her 21-year-old son was finishing his first summer as a professional baseball player on the Class AA team after helping pitch TCU into the College World Series.
They had checked into a Holiday Inn and left for the ballpark when her cellphone rang, and she saw Brandon Finnegan's number flash.
"I said, 'Oh my God, something's wrong.' The first thing in my mind is did he get hurt?" she recalled last week.
Nothing of the sort.
Instead, the Kansas City Royals minor leaguer said: "You know the hotel you just paid for? You're not going to need it."
"I just got promoted to the major leagues," he told her. "And we have to be there by midnight tonight."
Sitting in a car with her friend and Brandon's girlfriend, Betty started screaming.
"We were laughing and crying, all at the same time," she said.
They quickly packed up his stuff and made the 3 1/2-hour drive to Kansas City. The ride has kept on going.
Betty Finnegan had been prepared for the trip to the College World Series last June. She never expected her son could become the first player to appear in the CWS and the major league World Series in the same season.
"I was sitting in a classroom probably about four months ago," Brandon Finnegan said Monday as his Royals got ready to play San Francisco. "It's insane to even think of. I lived the college dream and major league dream in one year."
Kansas City took Finnegan with the 17th pick of the June draft --unusual, given that he's just 5-foot-11 and not the prototypical 6-foot-4 pitcher many teams seek.
The left-hander signed for a bonus of $2,200,600 and made his pro debut in Delaware on July 10 for Class A Wilmington. He went 0-1 with an 0.60 ERA in five starts and on Aug. 1 moved up to Class AA, where he was shifted to the bullpen and went 0-3 with a 2.25 ERA in eight relief appearances for the Naturals.
Finnegan made his big league debut at Yankee Stadium in early September, a nationally televised game before a crowd of 45,262 on a steamy Saturday afternoon. He was the first player from this year's draft to reach the majors, and he promptly struck out Derek Jeter on a 94 mph sinking fastball.
Finnegan was 2 years old when the Yankees star made his big league debut.
"It was such a whirlwind for him. I don't think he knew where he was at the time," TCU Coach Jim Schlossnagle said. "He said, 'Coach, I didn't even realize it was Jeter. As soon as I toed the rubber and looked up to get the sign, it's like, Holy cow! It's Derek Jeter!' "
Lights out late
Both teams rely on stingy bullpens, so runs could be hard to come by in the late innings. Kansas City's Greg Holland has six saves and a 1.13 ERA in eight postseason games. Wade Davis is 2-0 with a 0.96 ERA, and Kevin Herrera has a 1.08 mark in seven appearances. All three have struck out 10. San Francisco Manager Bruce Bochy's expert use of the bullpen has been the biggest reason for the Giants' remarkable October success. Jeremy Affeldt has made 18 consecutive scoreless appearances in the postseason, Santiago Casilla 17 and Javier Lopez 15. Affeldt and Lopez have been particularly tough on left-handed hitters, and Bochy will have to decide how to deploy them against Kansas City's Eric Hosmer and Alex Gordon, who have the dangerous Billy Butler batting right-handed between them.
What a Bum
Mason Bumgarner, 25, has stepped forward as San Francisco's staff ace. The NLCS MVP is 5-3 with a 2.67 ERA in 11 postseason games, matching Bob Gibson and Mike Mussina as the only pitchers with five consecutive postseason starts of at least seven innings with seven or fewer baserunners allowed. Bumgarner has thrown 15 scoreless innings in World Series play, winning both his starts while striking out 14 and yielding five total hits. He went eight innings in the NLCS clincher and figures to get the ball in Game 1 on regular rest.
Big Game James
Kansas City's James Shields is the rare Royals player with World Series experience. He pitched 52/3 scoreless innings for Tampa Bay in a 2008 victory over Philadelphia. Kansas City traded a bevy of top prospects, including outfielder Wil Myers, to the Rays to acquire Shields before the 2013 season. He went 1-0 with a 5.63 ERA in three playoff starts this month and is 3-4 with a 5.19 mark in nine career postseason outings.
The management
Looking for his third championship in five years, understated San Francisco Manager Bruce Bochy is building a Hall of Fame resume. Over in the other dugout, Kansas City Manager Ned Yost was once fired by Milwaukee in the middle of a September playoff race, and some of his curious decisions have exasperated Royals fans. Yost made all the right moves against Baltimore, though, and now he's the toast of the town. With both bullpens stacked and the benches often in play, this could become an interesting chess match.
Potent Panda
Third nbaseman Pablo Sandoval has keyed San Francisco's postseason offense since 2010, reaching base safely in a team-record 23 straight games. "Kung Fu Panda" is batting .375 with six home runs and 14 RBI during that span. That includes his three-home run performance in the 2012 World Series opener against Detroit on the way to MVP honors.
Karma, baby
The Kansas City Royals believe this is finally their time. They were counted out for much of the season, languishing below .500 on July 22. They were counted out again in the wild-card game before two late comebacks. Perhaps the same karma that won them Game 6 of the 1985 World Series -- the infamous Don Denkinger call -- has reared its head for a franchise that was downtrodden for decades. But nobody during this decade has owned October like the Giants -- every other year, at least.
Hey, Ump!
Jeff Kellogg will be the umpire crew chief for the World Series, and four other umps have been picked to work the event for the first time.
Major League Baseball announced the crew Monday, a day before San Francisco and Kansas City meet in Game 1.
Hunter Wendelstedt, Jerry Meals, Jim Reynolds and Eric Cooper will call their first Series. Ted Barrett and Jeff Nelson also are on the seven-man crew.
Meals will work home plate for the opener. After Game 2, he'll move to the replay room for the rest of the Series, switching places with Nelson. Brian O'Nora will serve as the replay assistant in the first season of expanded video review.
Kellogg is working his fifth World Series. Barrett and Nelson are in their third Series.
Wendelstedt's father, Harry, called the Series five times. The Wendelstedts are the fourth father-son umpire in Series history, joining Shag and Jerry Crawford, Tom and Brian Gorman, and Ed and Paul Runge.
Sports on 10/21/2014