Your memory is good–Atlanta did indeed pull off a triple steal in the fourth inning of a 6-5 loss to Houston on October 1, 1987.
The Houston pitcher was Danny Darwin, whom I don’t remember as being particularly inept at holding runners on base. But he must have been dozing on this particular night, as the fourth inning had a Charlie-Brown-ish sequence in which Gerald Perry walked, stole second, and continued to third on the catcher’s error, Ken Oberkfell walked and stole second, Jeff Blauser walked, and with two outs and the pitcher at bat, all three runners pulled off a triple steal. After catcher Ronn Reynolds was injured and replaced, his successor allowed another run on a passed ball.
However, this was far the first triple steal. There have been documented cases as long ago as 1900, and googling turns up references to Ty Cobb and Jackie Robinson being on the front end of triple steals. Since steals of home in general have become much more rare, I have to think the play is rarer now than it has ever been, and you may well have seen the last one. I can’t find a complete list, however.
Cool, as recent as Jackie. I am a little surprised. Ty Cobb being involved in one I would have guess. Did you look up the game in question somehow, or did you see and keep score? I did not bother googling last night, it was too late. I guess I should have. I did not expect the game to be on-line except maybe buried in retro-sheet. That is too much work for that time of night.
I only saw the game by dumb luck, I was in San Diego on the USS Ranger and we got TBS but no other baseball, I was jonesing for a game and watched a special one. I had no rooting interest and yet I got a great memory out of it.
If you have a scorecard or found, is there any chance you could email me a scan of it or a link?
Sorry for the double post, I did have a rooting interest. I just remembered I was rooting for Houston as Yogi Berra was coaching for them. :smack: Almost 20 years ago, its a miracle I remember it at all.
I remember being quite young (early 70s) and seeing a center fielder catch a foul ball for an out. I think I remember hearing that that was a first of its kind at the time.
Last year I was watching one of those awesome NFL Films “history of football” things, and they interviewed a guy who played for (I think) the Steelers in the 70s. He was a cornerback or a safety, IIRC. Something on defense.
Early in one game he caught an interception. As the apparently brutal game progressed, the Steelers lost all of their quarterbacks to injury, and the coach asked around the team to see if anyone had ever played quarterback. Our Man piped up and said Yes, he’d played QB in high school, but not since.
OK, says the coach, you’re our new QB. So the guy goes into the game at quarterback, and…
Becomes the first (and probably last) guy in history to both catch an interception and throw and interception in the same game.
I thought that was a pretty cool claim to fame (even if I’ve forgotten his name). And as football gets more and more specialized and playbooks get more complex, I think it’s increasingly unlikely that this will ever happen again.
The play-by-play of every game since 1957 is at http://www.retrosheet.org, but for some reason their coding makes it hard to link directly to individual games. Just go to the web site, then “box scores”, then 1987, and then navigate to the game by date or by team.
Thank you, sometimes it pays to procrastinate. I was going to get around to looking it up. I even mentioned Retrosheet in my post above.
Even more amazing reading the log:
5 steals with an error and a passed ball in very short order, crazy inning. All three men got on base from walks, no hits and yet 2 runs scored. Wow!
For football, I nominated the missed field goal returned for a touchdown.
The what? Well, I didn’t know it then either, but as long as the ball is still in bounds, it’s legal for a defender to recover it. Of course, this is normally a bad idea, because the defensive team would almost certainly get far better field position from the missed attempt. In other words, the only time anyone ever even attempts this is 1. the very last play of the half 2. when the opposing kicker is way out of his range and they go for the field goal anyway for some stupid reason.
On one Monday Night Football (didn’t record the teams, sorry), someone caught the miss and returned it 107 yards, a record I’m pretty sure won’t be broken. Believe it or not, I think that was the second time it happened that season.
For my new favorite sport, mixed martial arts, few feats can compare to winning after throwing one blow. There’ve been a few wins decided with a hard shot, but throwing one strike for the entire fight and getting a knockout…that’s pretty amazing. The recent episode of The Ultimate Fighter showed one of these. Gary Goodridge once lost to a single roundhouse kick, but I don’t remember if that was the only strike his opponent attempted.
If you can stand another sumo reference, there’s the highly memorable 5-man playoff which concluded the November 1996 tournament. Never came close to happening again since. Musashimaru won it with three straight wins after winning his regular match, making him the only rikishi to win four matches on the same day.
last year i was involved in a play, that while not unheard of, is one of the rarer plays in hockey; i scored a point while i was not on the ice.
i took a pass from below the circle at my blue line, then relayed it to the opposite wing before changing… the winger who recieved my pass ended up scoring after deking both opposing d and their goalie… i was credited with the assist, but not the plus for my +/- rating.
Chicago Bears vs. San Francisco 49ers. The kick was returned by Nate Vasher. I’m not 100% sure that it was a Monday night game, but that’s neither here nor there.
Vasher himself said that, even though it was a 107-yard TD run, he probably covered about 200 yards with all the zigging and zagging he did. Note how he collapses in the end zone a the end of the play!
The return in the Bears-Niners game last year was a good one (especially all that downfield blocking.) However, there was a game on Monday night, September 30, 2002, that I remember because it involved the Broncos losing to the Ravens. Besides being an awful game for the Broncos (and me getting some crap the next morning from the Steelers fans at school) Chris McAllister returned a missed 57-yard Jason Elam field goal either 107 or 108 (the NFL records 107, ESPN reported it as 108) yards for the TD. One of the reasons the game sticks out in my mind is because that was one of the few Broncos games I knew I would be able to see that season and had been really looking forward to it. I can’t find video of it anywhere.
Anyway, here’s the play from the NFL. (:01) J.Elam 57 yard field goal is No Good Center-M.Lepsis Holder-T.Rouen. C.McAlister at BLT -7 for 107 yards TOUCHDOWN.
Not a “play”, but to carry on the point **Reality Chuck ** made, yesterday the Phillies Marlins game was the first in history where two players whose last names start with “U” hit a home run.
Again, not a single play, but the Kansas City Royals, who always find new ways to lose, played a game against Cleveland a couple weeks back where they scored 10 runs in the first inning and still managed to lose the game. I remember reading that it was only the second time a team has lost after scoring that many runs in the first.
I saw Michigan play Indiana(perhaps Indiana State) a few years ago.
On third down, Indiana decides to punt so they can catch Michigan off guard. Unfortunately, they fumbled it and lost about 20-25 yards. So on 4th and 35, they punt again.
However, they fumble again and this time Michigan grabbed the ball and ran it down for a touch down.
Football field goal tending is very rare. As near as I can tell the only person successful at this particular tactic was a guy named R.C. Owens back in the 1960s. Nobody will ever again have any success at it, either, because it is now illegal.
One of the most oft-cited baseball oddities: Fernando Tatis, who in 1999 hit two grand slams in the same inning for the St. Louis Cardinals. He’s the only player ever to do hit two in one inning. I guess Chan Ho Park deserves a mention here, too, since he’s the only pitcher ever to give up two grand slams to the same batter in the same inning.
I was going to get around to looking it up. I even mentioned Retrosheet in my post above.