All eyes are on today’s NFL Draft, but I doubt it’ll produce anything like what Major League Baseball gave us Wednesday night.
Not one, but two “once-in-a-lifetime” moments, which is saying something given baseball is, after all, America’s oldest pastime. Alas, you still see things you’ve never quite seen before, even 200 years after Abner Doubleday invented this great game.
Yes, I know that piece of history is widely debated. But, I stand with our great civil war general!
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Anyway, where should we start? Let’s go in chronological order, shall we? Let’s first head out to Texas, where Pirates slugger Oneil Cruz hit a home run to a place I’m fairly certain no ball has ever landed …
On top of the foul pole:
Goodness gracious. Have you ever seen a ball land there? I certainly haven’t, and I’ve played, and watched, a lot of baseball over the past 20 years. Never seen that before. Impressive.
Just for good measure, Cruz’s piss missile clocked in at a solid 116.9 mph exit velo, making it the hardest-hit ball this season. Analytics tells us it traveled 432 feet, which, frankly, seems low to me. But whatever.
Cruz, by the way, holds the MLB record for hardest-hit ball of the statcast era at 122.9 mph last season.
“That ball was killed,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said.
Yep. Sure was. Solid analysis.
So was this one, a few minutes later, in Seattle:
Again, I’m quite certain that I’ve never seen that before. Pitchers take liners off the body all the time. It’s one of the more (most?) dangerous aspects of the game.
But for one to land inside the jersey? Never seen it. What are the odds of that happening? They have to be astronomical, right? Everything has to line up perfectly.
Now, I don’t quite understand why this wasn’t ruled an out. Seems silly to me. The ball never hit the ground. What are we doing here?
Technically, though, the MLB rulebook does state that a catch must be made with a glove or barehand, “providing he does not use his cap, protector, pocket or any other part of his uniform in getting possession.”
Fine. Whatever. Fair is fair, and I reckon this was the right call. Still seems lame to me.
And I’m quite sure Abner Doubleday would’ve agreed!
