ATLANTA — Ron Santo’s toupee hasn’t caught fire for seven years, since his infamous episode in the Shea Stadium press box in April of 2003, when he got too close to an overhead heater.
But Santo remains a magnet for mishaps, as evidenced by the loss of his front tooth while doing a spring training game with radio partner Pat Hughes at HoHoKam Park.
“It happened when Patrick brought me up a pizza from HoHoKam,” Santo said. “The pizza was like probably over a red light. It was a little hard. So I bit into it, and boom.”
The tooth suddenly was lodged in the cheese, leaving Santo with a gap-toothed grin.
“Fortunately, I found a dentist that gave me a temporary, and two weeks later, they put the new thing in,” he said. “They did a really good job.”
Why do things like this always seem to happen to Santo?
“I don’t know,” he said with a laugh.
Soto watch: The skinnier Geovany Soto hit .218 with one double and no home runs in spring training, leaving manager Lou Piniella to challenge his catcher to start producing.
“We’d like to see a little better,” he said. “We’d like to see a lot better, actually.”
Piniella theorized Soto and some of the other hitters may be “a little tired” from working so much in spring with new hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo.
“But that’s OK, because once they leave here, and they get their normal amount of rest and the weather is a little cooler, you can gain strength really, really quick,” he said. “Let’s hope that’s the case with the guys that are struggling a little bit.”
Soto went 0-for-3 in the opener with a pair of groundouts and a strikeout.
How does Soto feel?
“I feel good, a lot lighter back there though,” he said. “Obviously in the game I felt like (expletive), but body-wise and everything I felt great.”
The quote: Aramis Ramirez on what Cubs fans were thinking after their Opening Day drubbing: “I don’t know what they’re thinking, because I’m not a fan, I‘m a baseball player. I can only speak for myself, and what I’m thinking is it’s just a game.”
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