Mock GABA 2009 update: Monday 8/24 would be a travel day. We'd be heading for New York state after watching the New Britain Rock Cats come from behind to beat the Reading Phillies 5-4. Tomorrow's stop would've been Binghamton, NY (Mets AA) and the start of one of the toughest stretches of the trip - 15 straight days in 15 different cities!
As tough as it is to admit, I do follow sports other than baseball. There, I said it... big exhale. This time of year, the crevices between baseball games are filled with fantasy football.
It may be blasphemous, but fantasy football is too much fun to pass up. The teams play once a week, and the positions are simple... it's a fun way to pass the time from the World Series to New Year's Day.
So I was in the middle of a fantasy football draft, debating between rookie wide receivers and their 40-yard-dash times from the combine, when the gamecast I was watching popped up this line:
"J Francoeur lined into triple play, to second, L Castillo out at second, D Murphy out at first."
First reaction: thank God I spot-started Pedro in my fantast baseball league.
Second reaction: holy bizarre endings, Batman! There is officially a black cloud hanging over the Mets' franchise.
Third reaction: certainly if that were an unassisted triple play, something would've been said about it on the Gamecast.
Upon further review (since it's almost football season), this is reason #467 why watching Gamecast just isn't a substitute for the real thing.
It WAS an unassisted triple play, the 15th ever seen in the history of Major League Baseball. The 2nd ever game-ending unassisted triple play, the first ever in the National League (134 seasons). The most unbelievable of plays - one defender is responsible for all three outs on a single play.
Baseball went 40 years without an unassisted triple play from the 1920s to the 1960s... but now we've seen three in three seasons. Are there steroids that help infielders turn triple plays? I would call for an asterisk here, but Barry Bonds has hoarded them all.
Truth is, it's just a freak play that needs a series of things to happen more than it needs a specific skill set. Runners at first and second, nobody out, probably a 3-2 count. Both runners stealing with the pitch, and a middle infielder is coming across to second base in case of a throw. Ball is lined right up the middle, right into the glove of said middle infielder, whose job from there is easier than homering off Oliver Perez - just step on the bag for the 2nd out, and tag the runner coming at you from first for the 3rd out.
It happens so fast, even hardcore baseball fans have to stop and re-count the outs.
It's one reason why random players are the ones that dot the unassisted triple-play list. Ron Hansen. Randy Velarde. Asdrubal Cabrera. That household name Bill Wambsganss, who pulled off his triple in a World Series game. (The baseball purist in me loves the fact that the only World Series triple play was unassisted, and the only World Series no hitter was a perfect game.)
Eric Bruntlett's the newest member of the 3-fastest-outs-in-baseball club. We're talking about a player with 11 career home runs, a guy who made an error in the same inning to set up his nanosecond in the history books.
Bruntlett is the latest exhibit of baseball's nearly perfect metaphor for life. Today's lesson? Sometimes, the greatest moments are nothing more than being in the right place at the right time.
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