Baseball acrobatics
May 6, 2017 10:43 AM   Subscribe

Did you see this outstanding baseball play last week, when Chris Coghlan of the Blue Jays found an impressive way to reach home, getting past Yadier Molina of the Cardinals? The link collects a bunch of other great sliding leaping circus plays from baseball history, too.
posted by LobsterMitten (11 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
All baseball should be like that! Way more fun than home runs.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:04 AM on May 6, 2017


That was an amazing amount of fun. Thanks for the post!
posted by languagehat at 11:37 AM on May 6, 2017


I was actually at this game, and while we didn't have great seats to see this (we were pretty much looking straight down the third base line toward the home plate, so were at Coghlan's back), it was phenomenal. I really wanted to see them replay it on the jumbotron, but of course, the Jays were the visiting team, so it was more or less officially ignored.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 11:50 AM on May 6, 2017 [3 favorites]


Most exciting thing I saw live was, iirc, The Braves' Gary Matthews stealing home, back there in the 70's. It seemed to work largely because everyone was so surprised; I really think the pitcher lost critical milliseconds just going wtf is that? But he didn't flip over the guy!
posted by thelonius at 12:04 PM on May 6, 2017


These are fabulous!

And are yet another reminder of the way accomplished contemporary athletes (black, brown and white) make the (much more white) athletes of my parent's and a lot of my generation look like a bunch of stiffs.

A big part of that is certainly that white people learned how to do it from POC (cf. especially basketball), but I think something deeper is also going on there.
posted by jamjam at 12:49 PM on May 6, 2017


I love the 9 year-old doing the same leap in Little League. Thanks for posting!
posted by colfax at 1:54 PM on May 6, 2017


It is important to understand the context of that slide. He is a journeyman player late in his career with borderline stats. He is on his fifth different roster (cubs twice). He is playing to keep his career with middling talent that is in decline through pure hustle. He wasn't risking injury so much as doing exactly what he has to do to keep a spot on the roster. If he was a better play he wouldn't/shouldn't do what he did but he isn't so he had to.

Still awesome hustle and courage though.
posted by srboisvert at 2:03 PM on May 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


Heh. Cool.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:12 PM on May 6, 2017


I think something deeper is also going on there.

One big factor is simply a better understanding within their organizations of how to maximize athletic performance. The array of nutritionists, trainers, therapists, sports psychologists, video and statistical analysists within a modern professional sports team is vastly superior to what was available even a decade ago.
posted by HighLife at 11:46 PM on May 6, 2017


It is important to understand the context of that slide....

Ok, I was going to get snarky and snippy in my response, but that doesn't work out well and isn't how Metafilter should be done. So, let me ask honestly: I felt you were trying to color that one play with a bit of desperation and sadness. As in, it sounds like you're trying to say that he's in some sort of horrible struggle against the cruelties of age and the game, and is possibly sacrificing his health for it. Am I over-reading?
posted by aureliobuendia at 5:59 PM on May 7, 2017


I'm not srboisvert, but I had the same read when I saw the play the night it happened and then did a little googling on Coghlan.
posted by tavella at 10:14 PM on May 7, 2017


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