Apparently, there was an odd double play in Wednesday’s Mets-Dodgers game.
The Los Angeles Dodgers are accustomed to gridlock. They just never expected traffic congestion to doom them at Shea Stadium.
With a chance to take an early lead against fill-in Mets starter John Maine, the Dodgers instead ran themselves into a double play at home plate as New York opened Division Series play with a 6-5 victory Wednesday afternoon.
Considering that the Dodgers scored a run with two outs in that inning and the Mets went on to win by one run, the second-inning blunders proved crucial.
“I’ve never seen that,” Mets closer Billy Wagner said after collecting the save. “I mean, that pretty much changed the momentum of the game. They have a chance to go up at least 1-0 on that play or 2-0. Then J.K. (Jeff Kent) gets thrown out, and you’re expecting J.D. (Drew) to stay at third base. You look up, and for him to be tagged out, that was something you don’t see every day.”
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Kent led off the second with a single. Drew hit a dribbler to the left side for an infield single, and Russell Martin followed with a drive to deep right field. Shawn Green fielded the carom and delivered a perfect throw to cutoff man Jose Valentin.
“There’s no outs in that situation for me,” Kent said. “I’m standing on second base. You try to immediately read it. You don’t know if he’s going to catch it or not. If he catches it, you tag, and you’re standing on third base with one out and in position to score.
“If not, you assume that if the ball drops, at least I score.”
Third-base coach Rich Donnelly said he decided against stopping Kent when he saw Drew just a few steps behind him as they neared third base. Drew said he kept going because he noticed Donnelly didn’t put up a stop sign.
Valentin’s throw nailed Kent at home by a few feet. After catcher Paul Lo Duca showed the ball to umpire John Hirschbeck, he heard Maine alerting him that Drew was coming. Lo Duca responded by applying the tag for the second out.
Kent said he didn’t notice how close Drew was until he saw him near home plate.
Unlike Billy Wagner, I have seen such a play. On August 2, 1985, in a game I watched on TV, Carlton Fisk of the White Sox tagged out both Bobby Meacham and Dale Berra of the Yankees at home. With Meacham on second and Berra on first, Rickey Henderson hit a long fly ball to center that eventually bounced off the fence. Meacham had tagged up, and by the time he realized the ball wasn’t going to be caught, Berra was sharing second base with him. Both started running from a dead stop, and the relay home to Fisk beat Meacham by ten feet, Berra by twenty. To say that I, the TV announcers, and everyone not wearing a White Sox uniform at Yankee Stadium was stunned by this would be to understate. It was a tie game in the seventh inning when this happened; the Yankees failed to score and eventually lost in 11. The Yankees finished two games behind Toronto for the division title. Not that I was scarred by any of this, mind you.
Here’s a list of all the times a catcher has made two putouts at home on the same play. Of the six times it occurred, the Yankees were the victims thrice. Make of that what you will.
The infamous 1985 play was shown between innings on the New York telecast. What was disturbing was that both men took off at the same time from second, while Berra could have stayed there. Granted, Yankee Stadium has a huge center field area, but a good throw can catch a runner coming home.
The play also inspired a scene in Major League 2, but that’s another story.
I just realized that that notorious play – I saw it live on TV too, I remember it well — was in the same series as Tom Seaver’s 300th win, which I was at the Stadium for.
What a weekend!