My Life, My Journey

Something in the paper this morning got me thinking about baseball. Then my daughter Laurel wrote to me about a poem she was writing in a poetry class at UNC. She was asking for ideas about a topic. It had to be about a special event. Baseball being on the mind, I reminded her of her unassisted triple play. We reminisced. I think she may write about that.

In all my years of playing, coaching, or watching baseball and softball I have had the privilege of seeing only two unassisted triple plays. Both of them were by my daughters, and if I may be so bold as to say, not by my daughters most gifted in the game.

The first happened with my third daughter Laurel on her 10 and under softball team. She played out of Summerfield, but the “league” was the “NW League” and included teams from Oak Ridge, Brown Summit, Huntsville, Bethany, Colfax, etc. It was mid June, and tournament time. Every year a double elimination tournament ended the season and decided the champion.

Laurel’s team had had an OK season. Middle of the pack. Seems Merle Norman was their sponsor. They had lost their first tournament game and were thus playing in the loser’s bracket. They were playing Brown Summit, a better team, with a coach pretty much nobody liked because he always argued calls and coddled his players. Laurel’s team wasn’t supposed to win the game against Brown Summit. My second daughter Heather also played on the team.

I was a merely a parent volunteer who often coached third base.

For some reason Laurel was playing shortstop. I think she mostly played catcher but not in that game. Maybe someone was hurt or on vacation. The game was in Brown Summit. It was a hot summer evening.

In the top of the first inning, BS loaded the bases with their first three batters. So, bases loaded and no outs.

Their clean-up batter hit a rope, a low liner right at Laurel at short. Laurel was playing in, pretty close to the base path.

Laurel had a good eye and good reflexes and caught the ball. Good thing. It would have killed her if she hadn’t! One out. As so often happens, runners tend to take off on hard hit liners. That happens even in the big leagues. So the runner from second took off and more or less ran into Laurel just as Laurel caught the ball. Laurel tagged her more by reflex than anything. Two outs.

The runner from third had taken off for home. Before the play was over she would cross the plate, and then run almost all the way back to third.

I was in the stands. I immediately started screaming at the top of my lungs “tag third” “tag third.” I’m still hoarse, ten years later!

The other coach saw what was going on and he started yelling for his runner to go back to third. There was a moment’s confusion on their side because the girl didn’t know she had to re-tag home on the way back. So, the runner is heading back to third. Everybody in the stands on both sides is screaming at this point. Laurel is confused. I don’t think she really had a clue at first! But then it was like she awoke, and off to third base she went. The third basemen had no idea what was going on so Laurel had to tag the bag. Laurel got to the bag just before the runner did. She tagged it. Out three. Unassisted triple play. Amazing.

Her team went on to win the game due in no small part to that first inning and a later home run hit by my second daughter Heather. After that the team went on to win the loser’s bracket and played for the championship. They lost but it was way way fun.

More briefly, the other unassisted triple play I ever saw “live” was by my second daughter Heather. She was at this time playing in an older age bracket in a game up at Bethany. Heather was also playing short. There was a runner on first and second. The batter hit the ball hard high into the air. At first it seemed to everyone, runner’s included, that the ball was long gone. But it got hung up in the wind. Heather drifted over toward second base. She was standing on the bag when she caught the ball and the runner from first ran right into her. Three outs within maybe half a second.

Laurel had done a search for unassisted triple plays on Google. There is an interesting Wikipedia article about them. They are very very rare and usually result from good fortune than great skill. I’ve seen two, the two described above.

Amazing.

I love baseball (and softball)!