My least favorite double play is the “strike-‘em-out, throw-‘em-out” variety, which hardly seems worthy of being called a double play at all. To my mind, a double play is something the fielders do, not the pitcher. It feels like a technicality. And my grandpa always taught me not to play “Lawyerball,” which to him meant taking a walk. “That’s how a coward gets on base,” he’d always say. There were only three acceptable (read: non-cowardly) methods for reaching base, according to Pop-Pop:
The best and worst triple plays
1. Hit
2. Catcher’s interference (because he considered that a form of cheating by the defense, and therefore, cowardly)
3. Hit by pitch
Although, if you flinched when the ball struck you, even a little, that was not considered a legitimate means of getting on first. In fact, getting hit by a pitch without flinching was, in PeePaw’s eyes, the most honorable way of reaching base, even more so than hitting a home run, which he considered, oddly, the “coward’s hit,” because it didn’t give the opposing team a fair chance to throw you out. What’s more, he’d often argue that the defense ought to be able to throw the ball at a baserunner to put him out, and that hitting him in the head should count for two outs. “Now that’s what I call a double play,” he’d bellow between sips of bourbon.
Anyway, after watching this compilation of triple plays, it seems to me that the triple play equivalent of the strike-‘em-out, throw-‘em-out double play is the unassisted triple play. Novel, certainly, but not nearly as fun to watch as a 5-4-3 triplet killing.
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