Out-of-context pictures don’t get much better than this one:
Picture of the century
Or, at least, 1964.
Stare at it for a while. How does that make sense in a baseball context? What is Willie Davis doing? Why is he sliding like that? Is he okay? Look at Roger Craig’s face! What’s going on?
Fortunately (or unfortunately, if you really liked the lack of context), there’s an explanation:
The Dodger flyer overran second base, and Gagliano’s peg to third baseman Ken Boyer put him in the soup.
Ken ran him back toward second, but when Ken threw to Dick Groat, the trapped Dodger reversed course and headed for third.
Groat’s throw was poor, so Willie started for the plate. Boyer fired the ball to catcher Tim McCarver, who threw it back when Davis again retreated. The ball hit Davis on his helmet and he scrambled into third base safely.
“Put him in the soup.”
This picture was clearly the best baseball picture of last century, and yet it placed only third in the 1965 Associated Press California-Nevada photo contest. I can’t find the other two, but I’m sure it was a travesty. The voters probably used RBI and batting average to make up their minds, those monsters.
In conclusion, this is a special picture and there’s no way that any of you should think about desecrating it like this.
Hat-tip to Reddit
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