Swing and a miss? July 1's game between Lansing and Great Lakes (you know, the game I was talking about at the beginning of the column) was the walk-off that wasn't, while July 10's game between Charleston and Greenville was the walk-off that perhaps shouldn't have been. Again I'll defer to a Charleston broadcaster, this time Mr. Sean Houston:

Double-A Rod: Alex Rodriguez hasn't been in the news much lately, but this column might help to rectify that. The once and perhaps future Yankees slugger began a rehab stint with the Trenton Thunder on July 15 and hit a home run in the fifth inning. This marked his first long ball at the Double-A level since June 16, 1994, when, at the age of 19, he went yard in his first-ever at-bat as a member of the Jacksonville Suns. Despite a diligent effort by the ace Crooked Numbers research team, it is unknown if A-Rod's 19-plus years between Double-A homers is a new record. For the sake of keeping A-Rod in the public eye, let's just assume that it is.

No-no, no-no, no-no: The aforementioned Merkle-esque blunder certainly hasn't been the only recent indignity suffered by the Lansing Lugnuts. Entering the season, the team had been no-hit just one time in their 17-year franchise history. But here in the year 2013 they were no-hit three times over their first 94 games! South Bend's Kyle Schepel threw a seven-inning no-hitter April 14, four Bowling Green hurlers combined for a nine-inning no-hitter June 21, and then on July 17, Clinton's Victor Sanchez threw a nine-inning gem. MiLB.com records only date back to 2005, but no Minor League team in that time has been no-hit three times in a season. And for an even greater sense of perspective, consider that no team in the history of Major League Baseball has ever been no-hit that many times in the course of a season.

Tri-City fact flurry! There's nothing like a no-hitter to bring out the factoids, as evidenced by the email I received from Tri-City broadcaster Chris King after his Dust Devils pitched a combined no-hitter against Salem-Keizer on July 20. Did you know that, in the history of the Northwest League, this was the 39th no-hitter, the 18th nine-inning no-hitter, the first since 2009 and the only one to feature four pitchers? You didn't? Well, how about this? Did you know this was the second time that a Rockies affiliate threw a Northwest League no-hitter, the second no-hitter in the history of the Dust Devils and the first time that Salem-Keizer had ever been no-hit? No? Well, surely you are aware that Tri-City professional baseball teams have now thrown eight no-hitters, beginning with Joseph Drotar of the Tri-City Braves tossing a seven-inning gem against Wenatchee on June 14, 1958. I mean, everybody knows that.

Thanks for refreshing our memories, Chris!

Altoona Curve fact flurry! The Altoona Curve are currently six games under .500, sitting in the cellar of the paradoxical Eastern League Western Division. But just because their season has been unremarkable on the whole doesn't mean that memorable moments haven't occurred therein. Quite the contrary! The Curve, now in their 15th season, have set or tied a veritable bevy of franchise records. Allow me, or, more accurately, Curve broadcaster Mike Passanini, to enumerate.

Oh, and lest we forget: Andrew Lambo hit the first cycle in team history April 9, and, just prior to the season, the Curve set an all-time attendance mark at People's Natural Gas Field when 10,116 fans showed up for an exhibition game against the Pirates.

ZZ tops: Longtime readers of this column, of which there are several, know that position players are prone to taking the mound during particularly grueling Minor League contests. They also know that I will do my utmost to document the most notable of these instances.

This month, the most impressive position player to pitch was catcher Zach Zaneski of the Frisco RoughRiders. Facing Corpus Christi, Frisco came back from a seven-run deficit and tied the game at 7-7 after nine innings, and this was the score when Zaneski came on in the 13th. The moonlighting backstop tossed three scoreless frames, scattering two hits and a walk in the process, before giving way to right fielder Chih-Hsien Chang in the 16th. Chang recorded two outs in the frame, but a passed ball allowed Erik Castro to score the game's winning run.

Meanwhile, a special "position players pitching" mention goes to utility man Matt Weaver of the Lynchburg Hillcats, who, sources report, threw upward of 95 mph while pitching in a blowout loss against Carolina on July 10.

A triple-header of sorts: Another exemplary position player pitching performance occurred July 12 as second baseman Ryan Dent hurled two scoreless innings and earned the win as the Portland Sea Dogs defeated the Binghamton Mets by a score of 8-5 in 15 innings. The five-hour marathon ended after midnight, and the two teams played a doubleheader the next evening. This means that, yes, Portland and Binghamton had three games conclude over the course of July 13 alone.

The best, even at his worst: Somewhat shockingly, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre's 20-inning, 2-1 victory over Toledo did not feature any position players pitching. But it did feature an anomaly in that the only player not to reach base in the ballgame, Toledo's Avisail Garcia, went 0-for-9 and still ended the evening with a .385 average. This was some 46 points higher than anyone else who appeared in the ballgame, with the runner-up being yet another A. Garcia. That would be Scranton/Wilkes-Barre's Adonis, who went 3-for-9 to slightly lower his average to a robust .339.

An arachnid's silent wrath: On July 24, iconic AquaSox trainer Spyder Webb was thrown out of the ballgame, a feat that leads to one simple question: how does a trainer manage to get thrown out of a game? For the answer, we turn to the fine reportage to be found in the Everett Herald:

And then the kicker, which is certainly worthy of further exploration:

But Wait! There (Will Be) More! For even more "Crooked" content, head to Ben's Biz Blog. A pithy post of succinct yet endlessly fascinating "Crooked Nuggets" will be posted Monday, Aug. 5.