<table> </table> On the last day of May, Brad Ziegler pitched in his first major-league game for the Oakland A&#8217;s.</p><p>He could not believe it. He had made it to the big leagues, finally, after all this time. Everyone has a story about how they got to the big leagues, of course. Few of those stories involve two skull fractures, a release, a whole new pitching style and six years in the minor leagues.</p><p>Whatever. He had made it. On the last day of May, Ziegler entered the game in the eighth inning against the Texas Rangers. There were two outs, a man on third and he promptly gave up a run-scoring single to Ian Kinsler. It did not count as his run, of course &#8212; though he was not thinking about that then. Ziegler picked off Kinsler to get out of the inning. So in his first major-league outing, he did not actually retire a batter.</p><p>Three days later, he went into a game against Texas in the fifth inning. The first batter he faced, Miguel Cabrera, launched a line drive to deep right field. It was caught. He then hit Carlos Guillen. And he got Edgar Renteria to ground out to third.</p><p>The groundout was important. Groundballs were why Ziegler finally had made it to the big leagues. His new submarine pitching style was getting ground balls in the minor leagues &#8212; though nobody knew if that would continue in the big time. The next inning, he got three more ground-ball outs.</p><p>&#8226;&#8226;&#8226;</p><p>Ziegler pitched again the next day, another scoreless inning, this one sealed when he forced Cabrera to hit into a double play. He held the Angels scoreless on back-to-back appearances in June, then shut down the Yankees on three consecutive groundouts.</p><p>That was about the time when Brad Ziegler started to feel that something special was going on. There had been so many times in his crazy career when he thought he might not make it. He had been a good a pitcher growing up in Odessa, Mo. He was a conventional pitcher then &#8212; threw over the top. He had a pretty good fastball, like a lot of kids. He went to Missouri State and pitched well &#8212; won 12 games his senior year.</p><p>That was the year Philadelphia drafted him in the 20th round. As a rule, college seniors drafted in the 20th round have roughly the same opportunity to make the big leagues as college seniors who don&#8217;t play baseball. Sure enough, Ziegler pitched three games for the Phillies minor-league team in Batavia, N.Y., and then he got released.</p><p>So that was the first time that Ziegler wondered if he would ever make it to the majors. He overcame those doubts &#8212; his father always told him to stick with things. He pitched in the Northern League for a few games. The Oakland A&#8217;s noticed him, signed him and sent him to Modesto, Calif. And he pitched well there &#8212; won nine games.</p><p>Then he was pitching in the playoffs when he faced Fred Lewis, who is in the big leagues now, and Lewis smashed a line drive that hit Ziegler in the forehead and cracked his skull. &#8220;I wanted to finish the game,&#8221; Ziegler would say &#8212; because that&#8217;s the kind of guy he is &#8212; but instead he ended up at the hospital where doctors said he had fluid on his brain and stood by for emergency brain surgery.</p><p>As it turned out, he did not need that surgery. The swelling did go down, but a doctor told him: &#8220;I don&#8217;t think you should ever pitch again.&#8221; And that was the second time he wondered if he would ever make the show.</p><p>&#8226;&#8226;&#8226;</p><p>After he shut down the Yankees, Ziegler held off San Francisco. He pitched four consecutive days &#8212; two against Arizona and two against Florida &#8212; and he did not allow a run. He held off the Giants again, the Angels again and on Independence Day, he had a 1-2-3 inning against the White Sox, a Jermaine Dye strikeout sandwiched in the middle.