In the entire history of the American Bowling Congress, there have only been 3 perfect series of 900 recognized:
Troy Ockerman, December 1993
Norm Duke, April 1996
Jeremy Sonnenfeld, February 1997
Isn’t a double hat trick in Cricket pretty rare?
What exactly is field goal tending? (Assuming you mean American football.)
Jumping to knock down a kick as/before it goes through the goal posts. This is now illegal batting, safety if it goes out of bounds or the defense recovers, touchdown if the offense recovers in the endzone.
I have been to only 3 NFL games, but that happened at one of them. NY Jets at Indianapolis Colts, just a few seconds left in the half, and the Colts tried a field goal at the very edge of the kicker’s range. The kick went wide and short (couldn’t blame the wind, it was in a dome.) A Jet defender caught it in the end zone and ran with it. Ten of the Colts had already turned to walk to the locker room. Only the kicker saw the catch and knew what could happen. He made a valiant try at a tackle, but he failed. Touchdown. The Colts were still ahead, but the momentum had shifted. The Jets came back to win.
Gretzky did this a couple of times on purpose. He’d set up behind the opponent’s net, and with the goalie looking left, then right, trying to figure which side Gretzky was going to come out on, he’d softly flip the puck up over the net, onto the goalie’s back and in.
Ah- so if the defense was leading by three at the very end of a game, they would actually be smart to try to bat the ball illegally. I never knew that was against the rules; I just figured it was too difficult to be worthwhile.
If you mean six wickets in six consecutive balls, that’s never happened in the first-class game. IIRC no-one has ever taken five in five - Charlie Parker, for Gloucestershire, once bowled five consecutive deliveries that all beat the bat and hit the stumps, but the second was a no-ball and didn’t count. But I thought we were after unusual plays rather than mere scoring feats.
The maximum of 36 runs off six consecutive deliveries (one “over”*) has been achieved twice in first-class cricket, once by Garry Sobers and once by Javed Miandad.
slight over-simplification for the seppoes
Wicketkeeper Leslie Ames once appealed twice on one delivery. He caught a ball that batsman Don Bradman, no less, had got a faint touch to, and seeing the Don out of his ground he also whipped the bails off for a stumping. The square-leg umpire turned down the appeal for the latter (presumably Bradman got a foot down in time) but the bowler’s umpire uphelp the appeal for the catch. Some commentators thought that this was sharp practice, but Bradman was quite happy with the whole affair. (Baseball’s double and triple plays have no counterpart in cricket; only one batsman can be out on any given play.)
I saw Tony Gwynn hit an inside the park grand slam. I know it was in the late '90s at Chavez Ravine and Brett Butler was playing LF. So I believe it wasJune 26, 1997 This was the late in his career fat Tony. Watching him waddle around the bases was about as bad as watching Butler dive after a fly ball on the line and lay there looking at his glove after he missed it by about 5 feet.
That’s exactly what I meant. I’d heard that it had happened some years ago. Oh, well.
BTW, would you happen to recall the name of the guy who sort of recently got the “award” for staying at the stumps the longest for a score of zero?
OK, I surrender. How in the name of heaven did that go down? It’s been bugging me since this thread started … Out one was the strikeout. Then, I guess, the catcher tagged a runner who’d been trying to steal home. Then threw out … somebody at first. But if there was a runner at first, why wasn’t he heading towards second? Why would the runner at third be trying to steal home if there wasn’t a double steal on? Gah!
Same here… best I can come up with is this:
- Batter pops up a bunt down the 3rd base line for strike 3 (out 1.)
- Catcher tags runner coming home from 3rd (out 2.)
- Catcher fires to first to catch runner returning to 1st (out 3.)
Of course, I’m probably missing something that makes that implausible.
[nitpick]
I’m not sure what your source is, but the USBC (a joint organization that consists of the former ABC, WIBC and YABA) has recognized eleven 900 series, the most recent having occurred in April of this year. You can find a list of all of them at the end of this article.
Norm Duke did indeed have 36 consecutive strikes in 1996, but the three games he bowled were split between two different squads in a tournament, and therefore did not count as a 900 series. A similar situation happened with Troy Ockerman, who bowled three consecutive 300 games, but over the course of two different events within the same tournament (he actually bowled a 4th 300 game in the same tournament :eek: ).
[/nitpick]
Check out this article for more details and several similarly salacious strike-stringing snippets.
Well, this webpage at SABR (entitled Bases Loaded Triple Plays) gives a bit more detail:
So two of the outs came courtesy of the first baseman, not the catcher, and with no relays in between back to the catcher (given that the parameters only specified “involving just two players”). And, the bases were loaded, so the TP wasn’t turned with men on first and third. Hmmmm.
Aha, and this here link (also from SABR) has even more detail: the play-by-play account.
I don’t think this is possible under “modern” baseball rules, if the catcher drops strike three the runners are not forced to run, are they?
Yep. Baseball rule 6.05 (c) says “A batter is out when a third strike is not caught by the catcher when first base is occupied before two are out.” This eliminates any sort of force situation on a dropped third strike. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rule written in response to that play in 1880.
Oh, rules changes–of course. The dropped third strike was one of the first things I thought of in trying to think of a ‘weird’ strikeout play that could have happened, but I quickly abandoned the idea. But given the rules as they were in 1880 … That was one quick-thinking catcher, that’s for sure.
A 2-2-3 triple play could certainly still happen, assuming the runner was trying to steal home on his own, and a slow runner on first.
Runner on third breaks for home. Pitch is a third strike. Catcher catches the ball (one putout), then tags the runner coming in (two putouts). Runner on first zones out a bit and doesn’t run for second. Catcher notices, tosses the ball to first before runner can get back. 2-2-3 triple play.
Now something like a 2-7-9 triple play is probably impossible.
That would have to be one hell of a game of Pickle.
I dunno. I did see a game once where the outfielders were all playing extremely shallow, to the point of basically acting as infield backup. Sort of the opposite configuration of the “no-doubles” defense, it was a “no-groundball-hits” defense against a high-average, slap hitting and fast running batter (a Jason Tyner type, and it may even have been him), also allowing the corner basemen to play very close to the line to guard against doubles.
It worked, too: the batter hit a ball “through the hole” into right field, but the right fielder was able to pick it up and throw him out at first base for a rather unusual 9-3 putout.
Extending this scenario, you could imagine a men-on-first-and-second scenario with the outfielders playing infield, so to speak, and a double steal attempt made combined with a strikeout at home plate… Basically a “normal” 2-6-4 or somesuch triple play but with the outfielders covering the bases 