Explorations in Policing, Faith and Life (With a hint of humor, product reviews, news and whatever catches my attention)

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Unassisted Triple Play


I was watching ESPN Sports Center when I heard about the unassisted triple play that
Asdrubal Cabrera of the Cleveland Indians turned.

The description from The Cleveland Indians Official site (http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080512&content_id=2686835&vkey=news_cle&fext=.jsp&c_id=cle)

The play came about with the game locked in a scoreless tie, Cliff Lee on the mound, Kevin Mench on second, Marco Scutaro on first and Lyle Overbay at the plate. The Jays attempted a hit-and-run with both runners going, and Overbay smacked a sinking liner up the middle. Cabrera, manning second base, made a diving catch of the ball near the bag, stood up, stepped on second to retire Mench and tagged Scutaro for the third out.


I thought that was cool and unusual but then I found out that there have been only 14 UTP's since 1936. To put that into prospective a perfect game has been pitched 17 times. So the UTP is a very rare animal.

That got me to thinking what is the rarest record in baseball? The answer: 2 no-hitters in back-to-back starts Number of occurrences: 1 Johnny Vander Meer June 11, 1938 (Boston Bees) and June 15, 1938 (Brooklyn Dodgers) for pitching and 2 grand slams in an inning Fernando Tatis, April 23, 1999 for hitting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUG6e3xyH_0

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