Check this out! First minute of the clip. Anyone ever seen anything like it? (That’s a genuine, not rhetorical, question. I’m curious.)
It’s happened before, and not just in “Major League II.” I remember Matt Carpenter doing this awhile back. Coghlan’s leap might be the most graceful example I’ve seen, though. It looked like he’d been practicing his whole life to try that.
Shows up as not available here in my region (US), but I assume you’re talking about this. I know I’ve seen something very similar to that before–maybe it is the Carpenter slide mentioned above. But, as also mentioned, this is perhaps the best example of leaping over the catcher I’ve seen.
Actually, I’m pretty sure I’m thinking of this college game slide.
Of course, if the catcher had really realized what was going on, he could have applied the tag; the glove as it is is just inches from the leg/foot of Coghlan. But he simply raised his arms to protect himself without really realizing that the impact he was protecting from was the baserunner jumping over him, until much too late. The rather comical moment when he realizes what has happened, and then turns to try and apply a tag made me chuckle.
The announcers keep using the word “slide”. I do not think it means what they think it means.
I’m tempted to call it “Nintendo baserunning”: if an opponent is in your path, just jump over him.
See, when I read the OP and saw “dive,” I assumed a defensive play. I see what you’re saying, but I guess I just associated a “slide” as an offensive play towards a base, regardless of whether a literal slide takes place or a leap does.
When I saw “dive” I assumed it was like what soccer players do. And no baseball player will ever dive as well as a soccer player.
And yeah, I get why people fall back on the vocabulary they’re used to, especially someone at a microphone who has to describe things in real time. I’m just quite literal-minded.
What made me LOL is that Coghlan missed third, but nobody appealed.
Was there a better angle than the MLB one. Here’s a better version of the video. It does, from that angle, seem like he missed third, but it’s hard to tell for certain.
Well, I know he touched home plate because he’s handstanding on it.
There is no way to tell from that angle if he missed it or not.
If that’s the only angle, well, he touched it, and even a review would have said so.
Of course, for all we know, the third base ump did notice Coughlan missed the base, but for reasons I have never really understood, he can’t say so unless the fielding team appeals.
I think that may be the most astounding baseball play I have seen. Many of sports highlight plays consist of acts performed countless times in practice and in games, just taken to some unusual extreme. This one seems to have been invented on the spot, and wouldn’t have worked nearly as well had the catcher been closer to or farther from the plate. It would have been a dive and crawl had he been a different distance from the plate. The catcher must feel like a schmuck.
There’s certainly nothing definitive about that angle, but I could see why someone would get the idea he may have missed third. It looks like it should have been his right foot touching the base, but there seems to be space there between the foot and the base. Like I said, not enough that I would overturn it just from that angle, but I can see where the idea comes from.
Here’s the Carpenter one, for reference. Not quite the vertical, but same basic idea. This softball one is another fun example, with a different approach (no somersault flip, but good air and quick thinking!)
Here are some great catches, I particularly like Trout climbing the wall and reaching way over to rob a home run. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKR2vRj8Xzk
The Pillar catch at about 7 min into the video has always been one of my favorites. The guy is a beast in the outfield.
I was watching this game with the guys at the local sports bar. We all saw Coghlan make his leap.
When the dust had settled, one wag observed, “So the Jays get a run, and Coghlan gets 9.2 from the Russian judge.” We all laughed.