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2012 MLB Season


GriffinM6

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That is a pretty ridiculous catch. There's a handful of really great home run robbing catches that probably deserve to be near the top of a list. By nature those usually aren't as acrobatic, but every now and then you'll get one where they really have to climb the wall or time a jump-kick. Matthews Jr.'s is one of those for sure.

Do I think it's better than any of the four I mentioned? Nope. But it deserves to be in the conversation, sure.

But that's all just my opinion, of course. No real science to judging these.

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While all those are great catches, I still say this one actually tops them all. Why? Because he overran the ball and then caught it with his bare hand behind his body. The hand-eye coordination is unbelievable. While all the others are great, Mitchell catches the ball with a bare hand at full speed.

 

 

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The split second where he reaches back to make the barehanded catch is impressive, but the fact that he had to do it because he misplayed the ball in the first place lessons the greatness of it.

Kinda like when a hockey goalie gets himself way out of position and then lunges back to amazingly keep a puck out. Shows great athleticism to make the play, but if he plays it right in the first place, it's routine.

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the fact that he had to do it because he misplayed the ball in the first place lessens the greatness of it.

Jim Edmonds in a nutshell.

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I can't recall the guy's name right now (Gary Matthews Jr. or something like that?), and I can't remember if he was on the Angels or Rangers when he did it, but where would you rank the catch where the guy jumped off the wall to make a catch in the outfield? Just curious...either way it goes, those outfield catches are certainly something to see, ain't they?

Here's the catch, for all of you kids out there.

Phenomenal.

That catch (and that year, in general) conned the Angels out of $55M.

It was pretty awesome. :)

No idea if that was a case of a player saying I got mine or a team being dumb enough to sign a journeyman player based on a career year.

As for great catches I think this one has to be up there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy8OL9HQ6Os

Great read, great catch, big game situation.

Also watching the Epstein bowl in Chicago. Dempster pitching like he wants out of Chicago in the worst way. Scott Podsednik showing why he may be the most underrated player in baseball over the past decade. Only guy I know of that can basically hit .300 and not get signed to a big league deal the following year. And Dice K is up to his usual maddening self to watch. Every at bat for him is backwards. Starts out with balls then pumps strikes.

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the fact that he had to do it because he misplayed the ball in the first place lessens the greatness of it.

Jim Edmonds in a nutshell.

That's long since been a criticism of Edmonds, never something I thought made much since. Edmonds positioned himself shallower than a normal CF because he knew he could get back on balls if he needed to and it made it easier to get to balls hit in front of him. It's fair to wonder why you wouldn't use the same logic in the opposite manner, but I'm not sure of the answer to that.

In any case, I don't consider strategic positioning to be the same as misplaying a ball and recovering on it. He didn't run slowly to balls so that he'd have to dive or anything like that.

He liked the attention after a great catch, but he didn't play balls intentionally turn routine balls into great catches in my judgement.

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the fact that he had to do it because he misplayed the ball in the first place lessens the greatness of it.

Jim Edmonds in a nutshell.

Jim Edmonds is also the only guy I've ever seen injure himself between second and third rounding the bases after a home run. Granted, that was in one of his last 13 games (and I think the last game of his career) with the Reds and he was pretty old.

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I can't recall the guy's name right now (Gary Matthews Jr. or something like that?), and I can't remember if he was on the Angels or Rangers when he did it, but where would you rank the catch where the guy jumped off the wall to make a catch in the outfield? Just curious...either way it goes, those outfield catches are certainly something to see, ain't they?

Here's the catch, for all of you kids out there.

Phenomenal.

That catch (and that year, in general) conned the Angels out of $55M.

It was pretty awesome. :)

No idea if that was a case of a player saying I got mine or a team being dumb enough to sign a journeyman player based on a career year.

As for great catches I think this one has to be up there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy8OL9HQ6Os

Great read, great catch, big game situation.

Also watching the Epstein bowl in Chicago. Dempster pitching like he wants out of Chicago in the worst way. Scott Podsednik showing why he may be the most underrated player in baseball over the past decade. Only guy I know of that can basically hit .300 and not get signed to a big league deal the following year. And Dice K is up to his usual maddening self to watch. Every at bat for him is backwards. Starts out with balls then pumps strikes.

Good call. Chavez never settled under the ball, he had to catch it behind him on the run. It wouldn't have exactly been a dive, but if there hadn't been a wall there, he may well have ended up hitting the turf making that effort. That's another good example of a great catch robbing a home run, so I shouldn't rule them all out.

If Wainwright gives up a single to Beltran instead of striking him out, the plays that go down in history are Beltran's single and Chavez's catch. Instead it's Molina's homer and Wainwright's K. Although, I remember it all. In my opinion, that was the greatest baseball game I've ever watched.

Game 6 of the past World Series was the most dramatic, the best comeback, the best finish... all of that. But Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS was just the best played game I've seen. So much happened in that game. I remember a Rolen error (the inning after Chavez robbed him of being a hero--the error actually led to a great escape by Jeff Suppan), but aside from that I don't know if there were many mistakes in that whole game. You could say pitching mistakes, I suppose, but mostly it was just two teams that kept throwing their best at each other.

Mets fans may have another take on that. I probably would if the result had been different, too.

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the fact that he had to do it because he misplayed the ball in the first place lessens the greatness of it.

Jim Edmonds in a nutshell.

Jim Edmonds is also the only guy I've ever seen injure himself between second and third rounding the bases after a home run. Granted, that was in one of his last 13 games (and I think the last game of his career) with the Reds and he was pretty old.

That was his achilles right? I don't think it ruptured, but I think he aggravated it. Luckily I've never experienced one, but from what I understand, those things don't much care what you're doing. When they're ready to take you down, they'll just do it.

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the fact that he had to do it because he misplayed the ball in the first place lessens the greatness of it.

Jim Edmonds in a nutshell.

That's long since been a criticism of Edmonds, never something I thought made much since. Edmonds positioned himself shallower than a normal CF because he knew he could get back on balls if he needed to and it made it easier to get to balls hit in front of him. It's fair to wonder why you wouldn't use the same logic in the opposite manner, but I'm not sure of the answer to that.

In any case, I don't consider strategic positioning to be the same as misplaying a ball and recovering on it. He didn't run slowly to balls so that he'd have to dive or anything like that.

He liked the attention after a great catch, but he didn't play balls intentionally turn routine balls into great catches in my judgement.

I can't personally vouch for Edmonds playing very shallow, but that's what good outfielders do, because as you said, they can still get to stuff hit over their heads. Bad outfielders play really deep. I believe Carlos Lee spent most of his time in LF a foot from the warning track. Torii Hunter, while not a bad CF by any means, always played deeper than he should have because he made his name off of robbing homers. A lot of hits fell in front of him over the years.

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Man, the Rangers team didn't make a single move until the end of May, but since then, have looked like a :censored:ing MASH unit. Feliz, Holland, Ogando (Grr... NL Baseball), and now, the virus that's been making it's way around the clubhouse for what seems like a month (it's why Holland is on the DL) has put Josh Hamilton in the hospital.

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I can't recall the guy's name right now (Gary Matthews Jr. or something like that?), and I can't remember if he was on the Angels or Rangers when he did it, but where would you rank the catch where the guy jumped off the wall to make a catch in the outfield? Just curious...either way it goes, those outfield catches are certainly something to see, ain't they?

Here's the catch, for all of you kids out there.

Phenomenal.

That catch (and that year, in general) conned the Angels out of $55M.

It was pretty awesome. :)

No idea if that was a case of a player saying I got mine or a team being dumb enough to sign a journeyman player based on a career year.

As for great catches I think this one has to be up there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy8OL9HQ6Os

Great read, great catch, big game situation.

Also watching the Epstein bowl in Chicago. Dempster pitching like he wants out of Chicago in the worst way. Scott Podsednik showing why he may be the most underrated player in baseball over the past decade. Only guy I know of that can basically hit .300 and not get signed to a big league deal the following year. And Dice K is up to his usual maddening self to watch. Every at bat for him is backwards. Starts out with balls then pumps strikes.

Good call. Chavez never settled under the ball, he had to catch it behind him on the run. It wouldn't have exactly been a dive, but if there hadn't been a wall there, he may well have ended up hitting the turf making that effort. That's another good example of a great catch robbing a home run, so I shouldn't rule them all out.

If Wainwright gives up a single to Beltran instead of striking him out, the plays that go down in history are Beltran's single and Chavez's catch. Instead it's Molina's homer and Wainwright's K. Although, I remember it all. In my opinion, that was the greatest baseball game I've ever watched.

Game 6 of the past World Series was the most dramatic, the best comeback, the best finish... all of that. But Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS was just the best played game I've seen. So much happened in that game. I remember a Rolen error (the inning after Chavez robbed him of being a hero--the error actually led to a great escape by Jeff Suppan), but aside from that I don't know if there were many mistakes in that whole game. You could say pitching mistakes, I suppose, but mostly it was just two teams that kept throwing their best at each other.

Mets fans may have another take on that. I probably would if the result had been different, too.

The catch is popular any way, they have the entrance near LF has a silhouetto of it, and they gave a away a bobble head of it. I am still stunned the Mets did not score in the bottom of the inning after the catch, Valentine blew it. If he got a hit there Mets would have won the game and the World Series.

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Valentine blew it.

Valentine?

He was probably too busy getting hoisted in Japan.

EDIT - wait, this makes no sense. Who the :censored: are we talking about?

Jose Valentin 2B

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For the best in sports history go to the Sports E-Cyclopedia at

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I knew that stopped making sense as far as Bobby Valentine was concerned.

I don't remember much of that game. Probably because I've put the entire 2006 post-season into a mental fogger and tried as much as I can to forget it ever happened. Though the Tigers pitchers getting exposed as crappy fielders remains ever-clear!

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