They say that in baseball, every game you’ll see something new. Well that was certainly true of a Mariners/Devil Rays game last Saturday, as ESPN’s Jayson Stark notes in his regular column on “Useless Info”:
How often do you hear “first <X> in baseball history”? Flying birds have been hit and killed by baseballs in play more often than that!
Anybody have any similar examples from baseball or any other sport? Preferably one you’ve seen happen on TV or in person.
Personally, the weirdest thing I’ve seen (twice) was a runner scoring from second base on a “sacrifice”, both times involving the Mets. Once when Benny Agbayani in left field caught a fly ball with one out, thought it was the third one and gave the ball to a young boy in the field boxes as he started jogging back to the dugout. The runner on second tagged up and ran to third as Benny stopped, ran back to the boy and literally grabbed the ball back from the rather surprised and upset child in an attempt to throw the ball back into play. Poor kid. While all this was happening the third base coach sent the “runner” home.
The other time was last year during an interleague play against the Yankees, where the otherwise forgettable relief pitcher Dae Sung Koo hit a most improbable double against Randy Johnson, then while taking third on a sacrifice bunt fielded halfway up the first-base line by the catcher Jorge Posada, took it into his head to chug along and run home. It was a bang-bang play as Posada raced back to the plate, took the throw back from the first baseman and tried to tag him, to no avail.
There’s a play in Ultimate called simply “the play” because it is so rare and special. It consists of jumping out of bounds, catching the disc while you’re still in the air, then THROWING the disc while you’re still in the air, and having someone catch it.
If the person who catches it is in the end zone, then you make “the play” and score a goal at the same time.
I never even saw anyone make “the play”, much less score a goal.
Depends on what you mean. There are so many ways to slice and dice statistics that you can probably find a few “first time in MLB history” events each year.
For instance, on August 22 of this year, when the Mets played St. Louis, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, and Luis Pujols all hit home runs. It was the first time in baseball history that three players who already had 30 home runs for the season homered in the same game.
There was another game a few weeks ago where David Wright reached first base seven minutes after he hit the ball. The umpire blew the call (it hit the bag, but he called it foul), and it took that time to reverse it. Maybe not unique, but certainly unusual.
One of the reasons why I love the Steelers so much is their willingness to pull out crazy trick plays deep into the playoffs. For example, against the Bengals (in what has been inaccurately called a flea-flicker):
Wide reciever takes the direct snap and runs right, passes to the QB who has gone wide to the left, then QB bombs it downfield for the touchdown.
I once saw a guy make three errors on one play. This would have been at the old Busch Stadium in St. Louis, early 1990’s.
The opposing batter hits a Texas-league pop up toward third base. He starts casually walking toward first base, knowing he’s going to be out. The Cards’ third baseman (I believe it was Todd Zelie) camps under the ball and waits for it… and it falls into and out of his glove. Error #1.
Seeing that the ball is in play, the runner makes a mad dash toward first base. Zeile hurls it toward first base… and into the dugout. Error #2.
The Cards’ first-baseman fishes the ball out of the dugout. By this time the runner is appropaching third base, so he hurls the ball toward Zeile at third base. Zeile dropped the ball. Error #3.
By this time the Cards fans didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
I am fairly sure you’ll find they do - a kick from hand is open play, not a set-piece, and if the keeper actually has the range and the opposing keeper grossly misfields it, good luck to him. This is not the same as a “goal kick” which is a restart place-kick from inside the six-yard box.
Some non-goalkeeper scored one from inside his own half last English season IIRC. That’s extremely rare.
Impressive, but not a record: third baseman Mike Grady of the 1895 New York Giants* made four on one play. The situation was similar to what you described (Grady bobbled a grounder, overthrew first, and then dropped the throw as the runner went for third. When the runner ran home, Grady tossed the ball away.
*Grady didn’t play for the Giants until 1899, though, so either the date or the team is wrong.
I can think of two instances last year where the St Louis Blues scored goals against themselves, which I’m sure happens occasionally, but probably not like this:
In the first one, I forget who they were playing, but an opposing player took a shot on goal that was too high, the puck bounced off the glass behind the goalie, hit the goalie in the back of the head, and into the goal.
In the second one, I think they were playing Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay has a delayed penalty called on them. Blues pull their goalie to get an extra skater on the ice. Not a very risky move because as soon as a TB player touches the puck, the play is dead. One of the Blues players kicks a pass backwards to a teammate behind him – unfortunately, that player has started heading for the bench. The puck drifts all the way back down the ice and into St Louis’ open goal.
Around 1987 the Braves pulled off a triple steal. I am pretty sure it was against Houston. Insult to injury, the Houston catcher was injured on the play. Final irony, Braves lost anyway.
I do not think it has happened since, and I do not know if it happen before. If it did, I would guess in the Deadball era.
I know someone is going to post it happen again tonight.
The best part was, some lucky stiff had a bet on Alonso to score from his own half during the course of the game. About as long-range a punt as the actual goal!
I once saw the hidden ball trick pulled off, in person, when I was a kid. And as far as I could tell, everyone in the park was fooled, too; I remember being completely baffled as to what had happened. My dad had to explain it to me. Looking at this list of successful completions of the hidden ball trick, it must have been the 1990 one that I witnessed.