I’ll admit that while they were building the park, I was a totaly skeptic. It was a mule barn for fifty years, then a big hole in the ground for a couple of winters, and I was pretty much on record as saying it was going to be a big boondoggle bullshit disaster. I was wrong. it has been a great asset to downtown and is a great place to see a game, even for a non-fan like myself.
rackensack, email me the dates you’re going to be in town and I’ll see if I can secure you some gratis tickets.
I asked Mr. S to 'splain me how an unassisted triple play would work, but he couldn’t come up with an example (being only an occasional student of baseball). Anyone care to enlighten us?
I believe when Furcal did it to the Cardinals, he caught a line drive, tagged out a runner, and beat a man back to the bag. Then again, its been a little while and I only saw the replay once, so somebody will probably come along and tell me I’ve got it all wrong.
Check your e-mail.
I really regard AutoZone, and the Redbirds franchise in general, as one of the quiet miracles of our day. That an ad hoc group could raise enough money as a not-for-profit charitable organization to acquire franchise rights, build a stadium, and start operations, with only what, $8 million in government money spent on site prep and utility work, is astounding. That they did that, rather than trying to blackmail the local taxpayers into paying for it, is indeed miraculous.
Re: mule barn: I thought it was a porn theatre – across the street from the Greyhound station, where the Peabody Place Hampton Inn is now.
A player namedBill Wambsganss of Cleveland made one in a World Series game in 1920.
Men on first and second, none out. Hard line drive near second base that lookes like a sure hit. Both runners take off. Wambsganz makes catch, steps on second, tags runner coming from first. Pitcher kisses him. Voila!
The first thing you need to know is that on a ball hit in the air that is caught by a fielder, baserunners can’t advance until they touch the base they’re currently on after the ball is caught – this is known as “tagging up” and is why on long fly balls to the outfield you see runners move partway up the baseline and stop. If the ball is caught, they have to go back to the base before they can try for the next one (if it’s not caught, of course, they can simply take off). If they don’t tag up on a ball caught in the air, they can be put out by a fielder with the ball touching the base they left.
The classic scenario for an unassisted triple play is: runners on first and second (or bases loaded, though I don’t know that it’s actually happened that way), no outs (obviously). Batter hits a hard line drive up the middle that looks like it’s going to get through for a hit, so the runners each break for the next base. Second baseman or shortstop makes a great catch before the ball hits the ground for the first out. The fielder then either (a) tags the runner going from first to second, or (b) steps on second base to put out the runner breaking from second, for the second out. The third out is then recorded by doing whichever of (a) or (b) wasn’t done already. All twelve UATPs in MLB history played out more or less like this, though in two cases it was actually the first baseman (Boston’s George Burns in 1923, and Detroit’s Johnny Neun in 1927) who recorded the outs, catching a ball hit between first and second, tagging the runner from first, then continuing to run to second ahead of the returning runner. Interestingly, given the rarity of UATPs in baseball history, Johnny Neun’s UATP was the second in as many days (May 30 & 31, 1927) – Cubs shortstop Jim Cooney had done it the previous day against Pittsburgh. And George Burns’ UATP was the first of two in less than a month in 1923 – he did it September 14, followed by Boston Braves’ shortstop Ernie Padgett on October 6.
Here’s the, um, straight dope on all of the UATPs in MLB history: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/news/2003/08/10/unassisted_tripleplay_ap/
Thanks, everybody, that makes sense!
Well, if it happened once, it can happen again. But think how many innings of baseball had to be played before it happened the first time…
You, sir, are a scoundrel. 
With apologies for the semi-threadjack, I don’t think the series outcome will be quite the same should we meet again in the playoffs. We’ve got more offense to bring to the table (not that you could tell that from this past week), and the pitching is marginally better than it was last year.
I’ll be the first to admit, though, that getting Gagne back isn’t going to be our salvation. Frankly, most of the games we’ve won (and pretty much all the ones we’ve lost) wouldn’t have come down to him anyway.
I thought you might be interested to know that this happened yesterday in the game with the Atlanta Braves visiting the Los Angeles Dodgers. In the top of the 8th inning, Atlanta hit a grand slam to take a 4-2 lead over the Dodgers, but in the bottom of the same inning, LA came back with a grand slam of their own, and went on to win the game 7-4.
Perhaps you’ve started something, here…