And of course every baseball fan knows what I’m talking about. sure, it’s been talked to death, but I had to add a bit of context about an aspect that a lot of people seem to be missing.
Cubs/Pirates last week, 1-0 Cubs, 3rd inning, 2 outs, Contreras on 2nd.
Baez at the plate, grounds to 3rd. Easy out, end of the inning. But no, throw’s wide to 1st. 1st baseman Craig catches the ball in the base path in front of Javy. Baez stops. He starts slowly retreating back to Home plate. Craig moves forward to tag him, but Javy keeps retreating bit by bit, just dangling himself as tagging bait for Craig, who instinctively follows his lead.
Only then does Craig realize that Contreras had rounded third and was sliding toward the plate. He flips the ball to the catcher to tag Contreras, but Willson’s safe. Then Javy busts *back* down the line toward 1st, where no one’s covering, ball’s thrown into right field, Baez ends up on 2nd, and the internet atomizes into crazy disbelief.
The elephant in the room was that since there were two outs, all Craig had to do was step on 1st and none of this craziness or the run would count.
Of course, 1st baseman Craig is being crucified, by fans, commenters, broadcasters, you name it, saying he’s either an idiot or just forgot there were two outs. “Oh, he should go coach little league!” “Why wasn’t every member of the Pirates both on the field and in the dugout screaming for him to just step on the bag?!?!?!”
Hmmm, why do you think that is?
I’ll tell you why. A big part of the equation was expecting a player to do what a player normally does in a situation like this. You can say many things about Javy Baez but him being a “normal” player isn’t one of them. there’s a legit reason he’s called El Mago (The Magician) No one foresaw how this would play out.
It’s really easy to criticize from your couch or the booth when something seems obvious to you, even though you’re not facing the actual situation as the 1st baseman. I think folks are being a little too hard on ol’ Craig. Let’s examine it from his perspective.
Javy hits the grounder to third, you’re Craig moving off 1st to catch the ball and right there in front of you is Javy. Now THINK.
99.999999999% of the time, what’s the baserunner going to do in that scenario? Give up. You’ve got him dead to rights. He’s got nowhere to go. He could leap out of the base path but then he’d be called out. Sure, you could walk back a couple steps and step on the bag, but the runner’s RIGHT THERE, and he’s *obviously* going to give up and let you tag him. Like always.
But then this runner does the unexpected and moves back. Craig expects normal human behavior and if he forgets *anything*, it’s not that there are two out but that he’s facing Baez, who’s the king of the unexpected. Now, he’s retreating but he’s still right there, while the base is getting farther away.
Things are suddenly kicking into another gear as Craig and Javy get closer to home and suddenly Craig notices where Contreras is! At that moment, Craig might very well think “Well, this guy keeps squirming away, I’ll flip to the catcher to nail contreras, helluva play! This’ll make highlight reels!” But then he’s safe and everything is insane. A perfect case of circumstances spiraling out of control.
Because of El Mago. He baited Craig with his deer caught in the headlights maneuver, just trying to stall until Contreras got home. Now, it’s possible, very likely in fact, that *Javy* forgot there were two outs. He was just doing what he does, creating havoc on the base paths. It did work like a charm though.
I don’t think I’ve EVER seen a play go viral like this and be talked about so much. The Pirates manager said that was on him, but really, it was a crazy case of things going sideways fast. Craig’s actually a good player who’s been doing this a while. He just got caught in Javy’s latest spell. He’s human, it happens.
Gotta say, the most hilarious part about the whole thing was when Contreras slid in, the umpire called him safe, but Javy *also* did the “SAFE” move before remembering that the play’s still live and he had to get to first. I laugh every time it gets to that bit. Classic Javy.
thingis.home.blog 