Dumbest Play Ever!

I don't know if this is the "dumbest play ever" because it wasn't really a play, but it happened during a game....

My at-the-time-12-year-old played on a travel team whose home field was at a neighborhood school. It was in a nice suburban neighborhood. Beautiful homes.

One Sunday morning they played a double-header with a team from outside of our area. The center fielder, I guess, didn't have enough time to eat lunch between games, so every once in a while he would stick his hand in the back pocket of his uniform pants and withdraw a chicken leg, take a bite and then put it back....and continued until he had eaten all the meat....

This same center fielder, I guess, didn't think he had enough time to visit the Little Boys Port-O-Potty, so at some point while he was in center field, he turned his back to home plate and emptied his bladder.....right in center field. Although his back was towards the fans watching the game, he was in clear view of all the beautiful homes.....

Again, not the dumbest PLAY ever............

PBB, that's hillarious! At least you have porta-potties. We resorted to used Gatorade bottles, and that can be interesting when their misplaced.

Dumbest MLB play has to be the Ball off of Canseco's head for a HR.

I suspect that if we're going to pick on 10-year-olds we can do better than a timid outfielder who didn't know what to do with the ball...

quote:

Originally posted by theEH:
Dumbest MLB play has to be the Ball off of Canseco's head for a HR.

That was a real laugher!

I was at a Braves - Mets game many years back when David Cone got too wrapped-up in arguing a call with the first base umpire. Seems that no one had called time and there were at least 2 Braves runners still circling the bases and scoring. Tank McNamara got a few good comic strips out of that one!

Red Sox player (Trot Nixon?) tossing the ball into the crowd after catching the secondout with runners on base.

I'll have to tell one on my son; he has always been very competative and hates when he, or a fielder does something wrong. When he was 9 or 10 and was pitching in a tournament, he had a wild pitch that allowed a runner to go to third. After retrieving the ball from the catcher, he was mad at himself and was slamming the ball into his glove. Well you guessed it, he missed one time and the ball proceeded to bounce off the field and into the dugout.

13U game. Runner on 3rd, one out. One strike on the batter.

Batter swings and misses strike two, catcher drops the ball.

Batter runs to first.

Catcher throws to first.

Runner on 3rd scores.

Umpire calls batter out for "deceiving" catcher and sends runner back to 3rd.

Runner stranded, we lose by one run.

Who's dumber? Batter or Umpire!

Little League 12 Y.O district all star elimination game, my son's team down by 4 runs and the other team rallying. Their pitcher drives in a couple runs and ends up on third.

He notices our pitcher turned his back to the plate after receiving the ball from my son, the catcher. I watched as he pointed it out to the third base coach, who gave him a subtle nod.

On the return of the next pitch, sure enough, he takes off for home. My son yells and the pitcher wheeled and threw the ball. My kid was 8 feet up the line, the pitcher came in hard, slid late, met my kid helmet to helmet in what looked more like a fullback getting taken out by a linebacker (except the fullback had no pads.)

The pitcher/baserunner was laid out on his back, nose bloody, clearly shaken. It took them five minutes to stop the bleeding by shoving cotton up his nose, but to his credit he came out and pitched the next half inning.

Except he was so shaken he gave up five runs, went on to lose and thier LL all-star run was over.

Nice decision, coach - sending your pitcher into a hard play at the plate.

This was not a dumb play. But it was hilarious to all but the catcher, his coach and the catcher's parent.

Catcher scoops a wild pitch. And starts madly looking around for the ball. Runs to the backstop. Runners just keep running.

Catcher frantically searching for the ball. Runners keep scoring and running.

Catcher returns to the plate, perhaps he missed the ball there. Still can't find it. Final runner scores.

Catcher suddenly looks in the glove. Yep. You guessed it. The ball was stuck in the pocket the entire time.

Not fair to call this a dumb play, but funny and sad at the same time.

10 year old LL. This boy has ADD and has absolutely no clue as to what he's doing most of the time.

Last game of the year, we're down by one. He gets hit by a pitch and eventually ends up on third with one out.

Big hitter up. Coach starts to talk to him about tagging up on a fly ball but of course, he doesn't know what that means.

Coach, says, "Billy, don't move off this base until I tell you to."

Sure enough, batter hits big fly ball to right field, should be an easy tag up and we're tied.

Ever seen a horse race where the horses bolt out of the gate when the bell rings? Billy took off with the crack of the bat, I've never seen him run so fast. He was in the dugout celebrating his run before they even got the ball back into the infield to double him off third.

To this day, I'm sure he still doesn't understand what happened.

When my son was 12, we were involved in a game in the 7th inning, down a run with men on second and third and two outs. Our batter (I'll call him William)gets a base on balls, so bases are now juiced. Now we have our best hitter up, but on the first pitch, the runner that just walked (William)took off in an attempt to steal second base.

I was coaching first base and my jaw just dropped. He gets to second and just stands there obviously proud that he just stole second. Also oblivious to the fact that his teammate was standing on second as well. The second baseman just walks up to him and tags him, game over.

He says he thought there was just man on first and third, but from that day on, anytime one of our players pulled a bone-head play, we would say he "just pulled a William!"

Back when I coached 11-12 AABC, we had a good game going. In the bottom of the 5th the other team had one on 2nd and the batter had a 2-1 count, and 1 out. Now I noticed that the runner on 2nd wasn't getting back to the bag after every pitch. So, I called timeout and had all my IF come in. I told the pitcher to make a pitch and when he received the ball back from the catcher to not step back onto the rubber. He was to turn around and throw the ball to the SS and, hopefully, tag that runner out. I was hoping that the runner would get surprised and freeze, easy out. Well, the pitcher throws the ball and it's a called strike. Catcher throws it back and pitcher grabs the ball out of his glove and throws to the SS. Just like I hoped, the runner froze. But instead of tagging the runner, the SS showed the runner the ball and waited until she was back on base before tagging her. I was angry, but I laughed it off. We did win that game, BTW.

Dumbest coaching move. We were in the AABC state tournament and it was bottom of the 7th. We were up one run. I wasn't the HC, but assistant. I did coach another team, but we didn't make it. Anyway, I used a play where the pitcher and all of the IF and catcher would come in. Just as in the above story, runners sometimes didn't get back or would come off the bag after the ball was thrown back to the pitcher. So, the opposing team had two on, 2 outs, and their best batter up. So, I asked the coach if he wanted to try it. He calls a timeout and I explain the play. I told the pitcher to make a pitch and when the catcher throws it back to make sure he stays off the mound and make a throw to SS to try and get the runner out at 2nd. Everything went as planned. The pitch was a called ball and the catcher throws the ball to the pitcher. Sure enough the runner at 2nd comes off. Pitcher throws to SS and SS tags runner. But, while this was going on the HC called a TO. The TO was granted as soon as the pitcher received the ball. HC wanted to make an OF change. The batter ended up hitting the ball to the OF, where the one that was put in and he missed it. Ball goes to the fence and both runners score to win the game. So it goes... LOL!!

Back in PONY league many years ago the biggest, strongest, but not smartest kid in the league was playing left field and had a fly ball go off the top of his head. He picked up the ball turned toward home and let fly. He cleared the (high) backstop and I don't how far it went but it had to be the hardest ball ever thrown there.

So last year in juniors(little league) we had a kid that stole second, was standing on second, ran back towards first got in a pickle and got back to first on a bad throw. He got picked off before the next pitch.

Two come to my mind – both by my son.

The first was in a game at a camp. My son was on first when a ball was hit to second – son slid in hard to second (but legal) and toppled the SS. SS missed the ball so my son was safe. My son felt bad for the SS and stepped off the bag to make sure he was alright. SS was OK and had retrieved the ball while lying on his back – SS tagged my son out.

The second one caused the other coach to go ballistic. Man on third, one out. Strike three on batter, my son thinks there are now 3 outs and tosses the ball to the plate umpire who instinctively puts the ball in his pocket. Runner on third sprints for home but ump calls time and sends him back to third.

This was an extremely sad situation for all parties involved. At my first college the entire Fall season was a tryout, with multiple cuts along the way. Anyway during a Fall inter-squad a kid that I don't even think played high school ball was on the mound, and because it was only an inter-squad our coach had the batting tunnel on the field so we wouldn't lose foul balls. As I'm sure you can put this together, but in the one inning, I think I saw 5 or six baseballs fly over the batting tunnel. Thankfully, our coach called the inning after 6 runs had scored and no outs had been recorded.

It takes a real man to tell one on himself.

I took my son to the batting cage yesterday. He lined one right back at me.

I stood there and watched it come, cross over the L-screen by about one inch and drill me right in the side.

I'm not so nimble anymore, so papi I can say this..."It takes nimble man to get out of the way!"



........................Jack Lalanne.......................

Nimble is not a word that has ever been used to describe me!!!