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Back-To-Back-To-Backers of the Month
On May 28, the Braves became the second team in history to start a game with back-to-back-to-back homers. But if they thought they were going to impress the only other three guys who homered to lead off a game, they need to do their homework.

Back when the Padres became the other team to do that, you see -- on April 13, 1987 -- they didn't even win. After Marvell Wynne, Tony Gwynn and John Kruk went boom-boom-boom, they then gave up 13 runs and 17 hits and lost, 13-6. So if the Braves think they matched that feat, Kruk says, they'd better think again.

"Hell," Kruk told Wild Pitches, "they did it and won. We got killed. Anybody can hit three home runs and win. It's hard to hit three and get the slop kicked out of you."

Mad Bomber of the Month
He's going down in history now as the author of one of the greatest home-run binges ever:

	DaVanon

All from a guy who had hit exactly nine home runs in his career before that -- Angels outfield dynamo Jeff DaVanon, ladies and gentlemen.

Maybe some will want to put an asterisk next to this feat, which was slightly assisted by San Juan's fascinating Hiram Bithorn Stadium. But turbo-driven Angels broadcast elocutioner Rex Hudler knows different.

"Dude, he wasn't just hot," Hudler told Wild Pitches. "He was lava hot. And it don't get no hotter than lava. Lava comes right from the center of the earth, you know. I bet if you touched his bat, it might have felt that hot."

Well, technically, if it was that hot, it would have melted the whole bat rack. But we get the idea. And so did DaVanon's teammates.

"Before the first home run, he tripped on the way to the on-deck circle," the Angels' Shawn Wooten told the Los Angeles Times' Bill Shaiken. "We told him he'd better trip every time he goes up there."

Iowa Tourist of the Month
Rangers outfield-humorist Doug Glanville went out on a rehab option recently while recovering from a torn hamstring. And in his first trip back to the minor leagues in seven years, he reports, he wound up right back from whence he came -- playing in Iowa (this time against his old team, the Iowa Cubs).

"I think I lost my hitting streak from 1996," Glanville told Wild Pitches. "May have been one of the longer streaks broken in history."

Yeah, we'll be looking that up any day now.

Counterfeit Sparky-ism of the Month
Tigers manager Alan Trammell spent 17 years playing for Sparky Anderson. So it was only a matter of time before he started talking like him, apparently.

	Trammell

In a June 8 game in San Francisco, Trammell used a pinch runner (Warren Morris) to run for a pinch runner (Adam Bernero). Which was confusing enough. But what made this an especially memorable moment was Trammell's Sparky-esque explanation for what he was thinking.

"What happened doesn't normally happen," Trammell said. "But you know, the way that happened, you know, that's not going to happen like that."

To which we can only ask: What the heck did happen, anyway?

D.C. Tourists of the Month
It isn't every team that can go to the White House and get officially ragged on by the president of the United States. But the World Series champs, the Angels, were afforded that honor last month by their biggest fan, President Bush.

During the course of a fairly raucous ceremony (by White House standards), hitting coach Mickey Hatcher took so much abuse, it was all the president could do to avoid ordering Hans Blix to go inspect him.

"I want to say hello to my friend, Mickey Hatcher," the president said at one point. "Obviously, we didn't do a very good job about checking the security of every person."

At another point, the president quipped: "I got to know Mickey when he was working for the Rangers. He was a breath of fresh air. I suspect you're still a breath of fresh air ... occasionally, a BAD breath of fresh air."

In return for all those warm words, the Angels got to tour the oval office. They also presented the president an Angels jersey with his name and number (1) on the back. Bush didn't solicit any suggestions about where in the White House he could hang his new jersey. But Hatcher offered one, anyhow.

"You can put it," he told the president, "right up there with those pictures of all your oil wells."

Lineup Card of the Month
When the Reds were in Florida recently, bench coach Ray Knight made the mistake of having a brain cramp when he filled out his lineup card. So he listed left-handed reliever Felix Heredia in both the LHP column and the RHP column.

Fortunately, he wasn't able to sneak that little gaffe past his attentive troops.

"It's in his contract," pitcher Jimmy Haynes told the Dayton Daily News' Hal McCoy. "Heredia has to pitch with both hands when he is in Florida."

Boxscore Lines of the Week
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE DEPT. AWARD WINNER:

	Rivera

Yankees closer Mariano Rivera had one of the strangest three-pitch innings ever Sunday. Check closely and see if you catch why:

1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, 1 HBP, 3 pitches, 2 strikes.

OK, time's up. The great Mariano accumulated more outs (three) than strikes (two). How? Well, it didn't look that tough: Hit batter on the first pitch. Double play on the second. Ground-ball out on the third.

CROOKED NUMBERS DEPT. AWARD WINNER:

	Chacon

Rockies pitcher Shawn Chacon was looking like The Man Who Tamed Coors Field this year -- until June 7, when he unfurled this line in the first game of a doubleheader against the Royals:

3 2/3 IP, 9 H, 12 R, 12 ER, 6 BB, 2 K, 2 HR, 1 WP.

Chacon had given up 12 earned runs in his previous seven starts at Coors combined. But he knew the deal.

"People say, 'You've got Coors Field figured out,' " he told the Denver Post's Troy Renck. "That's never been the case. ... There's always going to be a time, or times, where it lets you know, and lets other people know, that you haven't quite figured it out."

North Country Boys of the Month
After the Twins called up big-buzz rookie Justin Morneau last week, they batted fellow Canadian Corey Koskie third in the lineup and Morneau fourth. Which inspired the global-minded Twins PR staff to do enough research to determine that it was, apparently, the first time two Canada-born position players had ever batted back-to-back in the same major-league lineup.

This, manager Ron Gardenhire told the Minneapolis Tribune's Jim Souhan, was a great thing. Eh?

Why? Because, Gardenhire quipped, "they can talk Canadian on deck."

Drought of the Month
It's only fitting that the longest home-run drought of Jeff Bagwell's career -- 141 at-bats -- ended Saturday in the home of the team that once traded him for Larry Andersen, Fenway Park.

	Bagwell

Bagwell told the Houston Chronicle's Jose de Jesus Ortiz he'd never been more ready to work on his home run trot.

"Right now," Bagwell joked, "I'm Ichiro without speed and without the batting average."

Name Game of the Month
He may be a household name one of these days. But for Devil Rays rookie Rocco Baldelli, that day came a little too early last week.

Knowing Baldelli was going to be miked for an appearance as host of This Week in Baseball, his teammates "persuaded" the clubhouse guys to plant a jersey in Baldelli's locker that simply had the name, "ROCCO," on the back.

Baldelli was then cooperative to put it on, make it all the way out to center field and play the entire top of the first inning with the wrong shirt on -- until, as he was running in after the inning, umpire Ed Rapuano stopped him and "ordered" him to change shirts.

"I didn't know what he was talking about," Baldelli told the St. Petersburg Times' Marc Topkin. "I'm like, 'Are you serious?' And I came in and everybody was laughing at me."

Sure were, the bums. But the mark of a wise rookie is to learn from your mistakes. So Baldelli vowed he'll learn more from this one than from the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

From now on, he said, "I'm going to look at my name every time I put my jersey on. I have to."

Corkers of the Month
Finally, we'd like to thank Sammy Sosa for providing more late-night monologue material than Michael Jackson -- by recapping the five best cork quips of the month:

	Sosa

FIFTH PRIZE: From Jay Leno: "It's supposed to rain for the Cubs game this Sunday, but Sammy Sosa's bat can be used as a flotation device."

FOURTH PRIZE: From Leno: "For the Cubs, this is a new low. Usually, Cubs fans have to wait till October to be embarrassed by their team."

THIRD PRIZE: From David Letterman: "A corked bat is a hollowed out bat filled with cork, Styrofoam and ground up rubber balls. It's the same stuff they put in the hot dogs in Chicago."

SECOND PRIZE: From Leno: "Hillary Clinton grew up in the Midwest, and she's a big Cubs fan. Why is she only drawn to men who cheat?"

FIRST PRIZE: From Craig Kilborn: "Cork popped out of Sammy Sosa's broken bat, which confused the Cubs. They'd never seen a cork pop."

Jayson Stark is a senior writer at ESPN.com.