FanPost

Brantley is a liar?

From Walk Like a Sabermetrician:

"...the Reds brought in their rookie reliever Jared Burton in the ninth innings. He proceeded to quickly walk the first three batters of his career, although fortunately for Cincinnati the first was caught stealing. Brantley then launched into a story about how he was so nervous in his major league debut that he couldn't even swallow. He claimed that he was pitching for San Francisco against the Braves in Atlanta, and that he walked the bases loaded and then wriggled out of it.

This immediately set off my BS detector, and so I went to Baseball-Reference, which through the wonders of Retrosheet, has quick access to info on Brantley or anyone else's big league debut. Jeff Brantley's major league debut was on August 5, 1988. He was indeed pitching for San Francisco, in Atlanta.
...
What we can confirm is that he did not walk the bases loaded; in fact, he didn't walk anybody, and he didn't seem to have much trouble throwing strikes. Brantley came on in the bottom of the 5th with the Giants down 8-2. He pitched 2 innings, allowing one hit, and nothing else across his line. He threw 25 pitches, and 15 of them were strikes."