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Casey McGehee Could Not Enjoy His Grand Slam

By Todd Welter

Some guys just need to lighten up. Everyone makes mistakes. Casey McGehee made a doosey in the sixth inning in the Brewers' 10-6 win over the New York Mets.

It was a routine pop fly hit by Fernando Martinez and McGehee simply had a brain cramp when he dropped the ball. It should have been out number two. Instead, it led to Brian Schneider driving in two runs cutting the Brewers lead to 3-2.

"You play long enough, you are going to have those what are you doing moments," McGehee explained.

McGehee was clearly not happy with himself and he carried it with him to the plate. There must be no better way for a ballplayer to vent than blasting a grand slam right? Think again.

"A grand slam, a little bit of redemption after the pop up," Brewers manager Ken Macha commented. "It's going to give you an indication what kind of player he is. After he hit the grand slam, I don't know if he really wanted to go out there for a curtain call. The he came over and stuck his helmet in the pigeon hole and said I got to catch that pop up. He was still upset with himself."

J.J. Hardy described McGehee's mood after hitting his first career grand slam.

"Everyone that has ever played baseball has a dropped a ball like that and it is definitely the worst feeling in the world. To come back and hit a grand slam like that, it took him a couple innings to realize what he had done because he was still pretty upset with the dropped pop up."

"He was screaming into his helmet. You could see him. He was still frustrated about the dropped pop up even though he hit a grand slam."

Hardy did admit dropping a pop stinks worse than a dog's breath. So everyone sympathized with him. The team rallied around him to boost his spirits.

"He was still yelling at himself for dropping the pop up even after he hit the grand slam but I think a couple innings later we were talking to him out in the field and we got him to smile a little bit and get him to realize what he did," Hardy said.

McGehee admitted later he was able to take in the moment even though he did not even realize the Miller Park faithful was craving a curtain call.

"How often do you get a chance to hit grand slams?" McGehee pondered. "I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot. I didn't really know what was going on. It was one of those things that Prince [Fielder] had to tell me to get out there."