Analysts selectively bothered by baserunning
TV AND radio voices must cease looking at failures to run to first base as selective cases. Baseball, at its highestpaid level for players — and most-expensive level for fans — is suffering an epidemic: running to first, the least a player can do, has become optional.
Tuesday on YES, Michael Kay tried to stress what couldn’t be missed: The Yankees passed on an opportunity to perform an easy triple play. That’s right, an easy triple play.
Up 1-0 in the top of the eighth, the White Sox had runners on first and second, none out, when
Jose Abreu, a 30-yearold pro, tried to bunt. He popped it up in front of the plate then immediately surrendered. Heading back to the dugout, Abreu nearly collided with catcher Austin
Romine, who was advancing a couple of feet into fair territory to catch the pop.
With both runners headed back to their base, Romine merely had to let the ball drop to start a triple play. But he caught it. The next batter, Avisail Garcia, hit a three-run homer, and the Yanks lost, 4-1.
But when Kay asked analyst Al Leiter why the Yanks hadn’t attempted a triple or at least a double play, Leiter said it happened too fast to even consider, which was nonsense. Kay tried again. Nothing, again.
That Abreu didn’t bother to run was the trigger issue. He begged to be humiliated by not running into a triple play. This was the game’s Wa-
terloo, yet it was dismissed. Tuesday on SNY, Gary
Cohen and Ron Darling made shame-shame at the Phillies’ Freddy Gal
vis for what has been ignored frequently on SNY when enacted by Yoenis Cespedes.
With the Phils down to the Mets, 2-1, Cohen and Darling scolded Galvis for not running out a high, infield fly that was dropped by Jose Reyes. They correctly said Galvis belonged on second instead of first.
SNY showed Galvis jogging a few steps, stopping to watch, then jogging to first, as Darling moaned his added disapproval.
The next night, Cohen said Galvis had admitted that base-running error. “I was tough on him, last night,” said Darling, “but he’ll never do that again.”
Wanna bet? If everyone, starting in the minors or wherever, ran to first after learning their lesson the hard way — and for the first time — not running to first wouldn’t be a Major League Baseball epidemic!