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I love, love, love the suicide squeeze. Other than the naked steal of home, it's by far the most audacious play in baseball. The sheer improbability of being able to pull it off makes it rare, as it should be.
Completely Different - Sleek and Weak I
Don't tell anybody, but here are some baseball plays I actually find annoying. If I knew the game was going to be loaded with these, I'd probably stay home :- )
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A. The perfectly-executed hit and run.
If I had a baseball team, there would be no such thing as a hit-and-run play. Sound weird? Earl Weaver's Orioles did not have this play either. They literally never used it. (They did use a run-and-hit, wherein the runner attempted to steal second base.)
Every time they talk about a RH hitter needing to hit a groundball to right field, I cringe. Suppose Roy Halladay is throwing a diving fastball low-and-in? ...which he will be, by the way, in a hit-and-run situation.
You pay such a staggering price when you advertise to the pitcher that you're hitting a grounder to right, no matter what.
It's just about the ugliest play in baseball, for me.
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B. Bunts for base hits.
Every time this happens, I think about the way baseball started - what it was meant to be.
They took a pitcher, stood him (what) 50 feet away, took a guy with a modified cricket bat, and gave them (what) 9 balls and seven strikes. Hey, you have to toss it so the guy has a fair chance to hit it (the strike zone). You're supposed to LET him hit it, and he's supposed to hit it fairly into play, and the game is about the fielders and the runners.
A guy squares around and dinks the toss about five feet down the line, that's just weak.
It's legal, it's effective, and it's according to code. But it's weak.
Who was it, Ben what'shisname the catcher, who broke up a Schilling no-hitter with a bunt hit?
It was legal. It was trying to win. It was also ... just weak.
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Special case: when a left-hand Rod Carew or Ichiro is bunting the ball onto a little area 3-feet-square, and getting a hit that way ... that's art.
Special case: when you're giving yourself up in a sacrifice bunt, that's strategy. And if you can get a hit by-the-way, that's skill.
Otherwise, spare me the suicide squeezes. They conjure images of the 80-lb kid throwing rocks at the 130-lb kid, and then running inside to teacher. :- )
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I'm not saying I wouldn't use it. Am saying I don't enjoy them.
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C. The ump calling a strike on a pitch the hitter couldn't have touched.
See above. The idea of baseball is that a pitcher is supposed to throw a ball the hitter can hit, and then the fielders and runners decide the game. (You know what I mean.)
When the ump "makes a mistake" for a star pitcher who throws the ball so far outside the hitter literally can't reach it, my ears turn red.
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Groundskeepers changing the field to benefit one team. I don't find it cute, though some do. Supposing that an NBA team tightened the rims against the visitors. Is there anything cool about that?
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Comments
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Those are also improbable, difficult to execute and amazing when they work. I also love the double steal where the guy from third scores while the catcher is caught throwing it to second. :)
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Who broken up Schilling no-hitter with a bunt...and I remember seeing the replay and booooooooooing him...calling him a chicken-**** loser etc. LOL
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Never really had a problem with BD's bunt single here, or any other one for that matter.
It's not lack of machismo on the part of the batter or his team - Jemanji describing it as throwing pebbles at the bully and then running away. No, to me it's getting it done by any means necessary. It's the fielders who lack the machismo to deal with whatever the batters throw at them. When you're battling the demon on level 47 before getting the BFG9000 so you can get to level 48, you don't shoot at the body, you aim for the eyes..... ; )
The America's cup has been won over the past many years by whoever was cleverest at pushing the limits of the rules. You win not just by being bigger & stronger than the other guys, but craftier as well.
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Whether stuff like that is kind of weaselly, or all part of the game.
I can tell you that in street 3-on-3, a guy who gets dunked on and then complains his opponent's toe touched the sideline, is liable to get punched out :- ) but to some folks, arguing about an inch of sideline or an inch of pine tar on the bat or what-have-you is just due diligence.
My bias is, I like mano-a-mano, you throw it, I see if I can hit it, and let the better man win...
Granted, all's fair in love and war, and the goal is to win :- )