The Pecan Park Eagle

Bill Wambsganss: His Unassisted Triple Play in the 1920 World Series is All People Remember of him.

 ^{Short of the one time in history that Chicago White Sox center fielder Johnny Mostil crossed all the way over to catch a towering fly foul ball down the right field line back in the 1920s, it is the rarest out play in baseball;;. It is the unassisted triple play, a play that’s rare enough, even when several defensive players are involved. Do you remember that iconic moment in the Walter Matthau-Jack Lemmon movie, “The Odd Couple,” when Felix calls Oscar at Shea Stadium, where Oscar is working as a sportswriter at a Mets game, just to ask what he wants for dinner? The call causes Oscar to turn his back and miss the only triple play he ever would have been privileged to witness, and it wasn’t even the unassisted kind.}

^{How special was that frustration?}

^{I don’t have the figure on total triple plays, but there have been only fifteen unassisted triple plays in baseball’s modern era. Fourteen (14) of these occurred during regular season games and the one (1) most famous solo shot job by Bill Wambsganss of the Cleveland Indians happened in the 1920 World Series. Neal Ball, a Detroit Tiger shortstop, pulled off the first one in 1909.. The most recent “UTP” happened one hundred years later, when second baseman Eric Bruntlett of the Philadelphia Phillies pulled off a familiar line drive catch, touch, and tag play on the batter and two baserunners. Bruntlett’s pattern was identical to the execution path taken by Neal Ball and, in fact, all the “UTP” plays are worked as one of two patterns: catch, touch, and tag – or else – catch, tag, and touch.}

More exactly, twelve (12) of the “UTP” have gone down as line drive captures, followed by a tag of second base to retire te runner who left from there, and then finished by a tag of the runner trying to reach second from first base.The other three (3) “”UTP” also have started with  line drive catches, followed by tags of a runner trying to advance from first, and then finished with a touch of second base to retire the man who was off from there.

Not surprisingly, eight of these “UTP” have been pulled off by shortstops, five (5) by second basemen, and only two (2) by first basemen. Surprise catches of line drives and runners in motion with nobody out are the apparently requisite conditions for one to happen, plus a little luck on positioning and the flow of action. Both of the fist basemen plays were of the catch, tag, and, touch second type – and you can almost see what to happen to make these possible. They each had to catch drives running toward second as they then tagged the runner moving from first before touching second to retire the runner trying to get back there. George Burns (Threw Right) did it as a first sacker for the 1923 Boston Red Sox; Johnny Neun (Threw Left) did it for the 1927 Detroit Tigers.

The complete list of MLB “Unassisted Triple Play” guys by position, team, and date of execution Cleveland Indians)through this morning’s publication includes:

(1) Neal Ball, SS (Cleveland Naps) (07-19-1909)

(2) Bill Wambsganss, 2B (Cleveland Indians) (10-10-1920) *

(3) George Burns, 1B (Boston Red Sox) (09-14-1923)

(4) Ernie Padgett, SS (Boston Braves) (10-06-1923)

(5) Glenn Wright, SS  (Pittsburgh Pirates) (05-07-1925)

(6) Jimmy Gooney, SS (Chicago Cubs)  (05-30-1927)

(7) Johnny Neun, 1B (Detroit Tigers) (05-31-1927)

(8) Ron Hansen, SS (Washington Senators) (07-30-1968)

(9) Mickey Morandini, 2B (Philadelphia Phillies) (09-20-1992)

(10) John Valentin, SS (Boston Red Sox) (07-08-1994)

(11) Randy Velarde, 2B (Oakland Athletics) (05-29-2000)

(12) Rafel Furcal, SS (Atlanta Braves) (08-10-2003)

(13) Troy Tulowitzki, SS (Colorado Rockies) (04-29-2007)

(14) Adrubal Cabrera, 2B (Cleveland Indians) (05-12-2008)

(15) Eric Bruntlett, 2B (Philadelphia Phillies) (08-23-2009)

* Only UTP in World Series History.

One other list note: After Cooney and Neun collected UTP credit on consecutive days. May 30-31, 1927,  major league baseball did not see another such play for forty-one years. It’s amazing how that works.

Paul Hines Almost Had the 1st Unassisted Triple Play in Baseball History Back in 1878

Neal Ball of the 19th century is given disputed credit for the first unassisted triple play on an execution pattern that varied greatly from all the others on our official list. For one thing, Ball was a center fielder, not an infielder. Here is what happened and why it is disputed:

On May 8, 1878, Neal Ball of the Providence Grays was playing in a Grays road game with the home club Boston Red Caps. With Boston runners on second and third, center fielder Hines caught a line drive from Jack Burdock that the runners thought was uncatchable. When he caught it, both runners had already passed third. Hines tagged third, which, by the rules of the day, meant both runners were out. To make certain, he then threw the ball to Charlie Sweasy at second base for a back up tag of that base.

“It is still debated whether this was truly an unassisted triple play. (Modern rules would indeed have required either the ball to be conveyed to second base to put out the runner who had been on that base and had not tagged up, or that runner to be tagged.) According to the Society for American Baseball Research, the runner coming from second, Ezra Sutton, had not yet touched third base, which would mean that even by 19th century rules the play was not complete until Hines threw to second, and thus the play was not unassisted.[2] Ernest J. Lanigan’s Baseball Cyclopedia, 1922, which covers professional baseball back to 1876, states on p. 157 that Neal Ball in 1909 was ‘the first major leaguer to make an unassisted triple play.’ The Sporting News Baseball Record Book, which covers records back to 1876, likewise does not list Hines’ play in the section on unassisted triple plays.” – MLB UNASSISTED TRIPLE PLAYS / 19TH CENTURY – Wikipedia.

My personal opinion is that we have to disallow the Neal Ball “UTP” because of the doubt that runner Ezra Sutton had ever touched third base on his way home from second. Had he been confirmed as having touched third on his way as the second runner coming home, then both runners would have been retired by 19th century rules when Hines touched third base, but that’s not what happened. Hines threw to Sweasey for a tag of second base, just to make sure.

Now, by the time the play concluded, neither runner was a threat to go back to their bases of origin. They were near their dugout, watching what was going on. Had Neal been driven for credit on the first “UTP” in history, he could have simply run the ball to second base himself and stepped on the bag and had the whole thing sewed up as a “UTP” – either way you sliced it, but he did not. Paul Hines apparently was playing the game to win and not to set some kind of landmark fielding record – and isn’t that what baseball is supposedly about?

“Winning? DUH!”