This recent quadruple play pulled off by the White Sox has been underreported. It happened when second baseman Omar Vizquel immediately after a triple play — forceouts at home, third, and second, threw to first to beat the runner whose swinging bunt with the bases loaded had landed in front of Sox catcher Pierzynski.
There already were three outs, but Vizquel threw anyway.
“It wasn’t me. Something took over my body and made that throw for me. It was like some, eh, renegade spirit trespassed into my soul and became my essence, and the only way for it to atone for its sins that was keeping it in this world and ascend to the glorious afterlife . . . was to catch that ball, turn around and throw it over to Paulo.”
He refers to the first baseman, Konerko, who treated the throw as just another one of the hundreds he has caught this season. It
easily beat Betancourt to the bag, as [he] had watched the play unfold and understandably headed back towards the dugout, believing his run down to first base to now be superfluous.
It was not, however. The umpire, caught up in the moment,
called him out emphatically, getting down on one knee and throwing a fierce uppercut at an invisible . . . boxing opponent while screaming “JYERIIIAAOUUUTT” in a grunge-rock falsetto.
The upshot?
After a brief conference, the umpires decided that Kansas City would start the fourth with one out.
“Initially, I thought that idea was ridiculous”, said crew chief Lloyd Robertson, “but [first-base ump] Gzowski convinced us. He was right: it was friggin’ awesome. I mean, who’s ever seen a quadruple play? Awesome. An Awesomely Awesome play of Awesome Awesomeness.”
I can’t believe it. History was made, and no screaming headlines.
It was reported, by the way, by Dave Rutt, who says of himself he’s a
- Teacher by day, sleeping by night. I also enjoy watching, playing and writing about baseball and other sports . . . . I recently returned from Barranquilla, Colombia, where I was teaching middle school math for a year, and am still finishing up all the blogs I want to write about my travels in Colombia and Peru.
His blog is Bottom of the Fourth, where he has lots more about baseball etc.
Blithe Spirit 
Jim, there’s no such thing as a quadruple play in baseball.
After reading the blog story, I tried unsuccessfully to find independent corroboration of the story, but it doesn’t matter. The ump that came up with the cockamamie idea of penalizing one team an out at the beginning of the next inning had watched too many football games. In football, some penalties are measured off in the next series, e.g., if a player showboats after scoring a touchdown, his team is penalized on the ensuing kickoff. But that doesn’t happen in baseball. Three outs are it. When the third out was called, the inning was over.
That a player tried to make a fourth out was meaningless. (One of the umpires’ jobs is to keep things like outs straight.) But the umps screwed up twice: First, when an ump called a fourth out, and second, when the crew chief punished the team that he or his colleague had mistakenly called out a fourth time that inning.
P.S. I can’t believe that Omar Vizquel, the greatest shortstop I ever saw play, is now at second base. A couple of years ago, when he was about 40, he played for the Giants against my beloved, underachieving Mets. Vizquel put on a clinic, the likes of which I’d never seen at that position. (Think, Brooks Robby in the 1970 World Series.) He made about three impossible plays, only one of which I can clearly recall: A Met smashed a ground ball to Omar’s right. He couldn’t possibly (even as a youngster) react quickly enough with his glove hand, so he grabbed it with his bare hand, and threw the guy out, like it was nothing.
And the passion and the joy he showed. He was smiling from ear to ear, having the time of his life.
The most beautiful DP I ever saw was when Robby Alomar played second to Vizquel’s short at Cleveland. A batter hit a ground ball to Alomar’s right. He backhanded it, turned his hand, and shoveled directly from his glove towards Vizquel, who was coming up on second base. Omar had one foot on the bag, and his empty right hand already cocked back, as the ball arrived, and he had only to make one motion to throw a strike to first. Perfection.
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Vizquel is still doing things like that for the White Sox. Maybe not a quadruple play . . . yet . . .
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As far as I can tell, this story is a complete fabrication. Too bad, as it was pretty funny.
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