Homerin' Jose

Even though he was almost 500 feet away from home plate, you could make a pretty good argument that Christian Falter had one of the best seats in the house for the finals of the Big League Challenge home run-hitting contest Sunday afternoon at Cashman Field.

Falter and 24 of his Centennial High School baseball teammates were enlisted to help shag balls. And it was Falter and several of his teammates who were standing on top of the berm behind the left-field fence when Jose Canseco put on an awesome home run-hitting display to defeat Rafael Palmeiro 28-15 in Sunday's championship final.

Canseco, who needed extra innings to defeat Chipper Jones 7-6 in the semifinals, hit 21 home runs over one four-inning span in the finals, many of which sailed over the berm that Falter and company were patrolling about 475 feet away. At least one Canseco drive made it all the way across Washington Avenue some 600 feet away.

"I just got into my groove," said Canseco, who finished with some badly blistered hands as well as a nice crystal championship trophy.

"You'd be standing up there and see the ball get hit and the next thing you knew it would be flying by you," Falter said. "There were a couple of those drives that if it would have hit you, you might have continued sailing along with it. One of my friends did get a glove on one, but the ball just popped right out because it was hit so hard."

"It was unreal," added Brett Allen, a Centennial High assistant who also was on the left-field berm. "It was just one after another (over the berm by Canseco). If they weren't clearing the lights, they'd be going off of or over the scoreboard. It was incredible to see."

Especially when you consider the scoreboard has been measured at 474 feet away from home plate.

"The one that really blew me away was the one (Canseco) hit on Saturday morning which hit the top of the light tower," Allen said.

That light tower measures 185 feet above the left-field fence.

Falter and his teammates didn't get to keep any of the balls they shagged.

"They took them away to be auctioned off at charity," he said.

Still, Falter and his teammates managed to snag autographs from Jones and Palmeiro.

"Both were great guys, very down-to-earth," Falter said.

And the players will no doubt be celebrities around Centennial High when the home run series airs on ESPN and ESPN2 in late March. Thanks to Canseco's monster blasts, they seemed to get about as much air time as the players.

* BIG LEAGUE CHALLENGE NOTES: About 300 fans stayed around afterward to chant, "Jose, Jose" outside the locker room as Canseco made his way to his limousine, signing about a dozen autographs along the way. ... Richard White, general manager of licensing and marketing for the MLB Players Association and the main man who organized the competition, said he was "very pleased" with the way the weekend went and that another Big League Challenge would be held at Cashman Field in 2001. "I can't say enough about the Las Vegas Stars and the LVCVA and their help in putting this on," he said. ... White said that Chicago Cubs star Sammy Sosa, who was forced to withdraw from this year's competition after coming down with a bad case of the flu early Saturday morning, "has already told me he wants to come back next year and participate." ... Mark McGwire, owner of basebal l's single-season home run record, was defeated by Canseco in Saturday's quarterfinals. Ken Griffey Jr., who has the best shot among active players to ecli pse Hank Aaron's career home run record, pulled out of the Big League Challenge more than a week before the event amid talk that he would be traded from Seattle to Cincinnati. That deal was completed Thursday. ... ESPN2's coverage , which consists of 10 30-minute shows and one 60-minute finale, will begin on Monday, March 20, at 2:30 p.m, and will run each weekday at the same time. The final round will be shown on Friday, March 31, at 3 p.m. ESPN will also air the series on 11 consecutive Thursdays beginning on April 6 at 4 p.m.

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