The Most Amazing Thing You Will Ever See in a Phillies Game (Hint: It Happened Last Night)
By Jock | June 17, 2008
Category: Local News
Remember when you were a kid and used to spend hours pouring over box scores? Well, let’s play a little game this morning. Have a look at last night’s Phillies box score and tell me what jumps out at you:
| Philadelphia Phillies | ||||||||
| Hitters | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | SO | LOB | AVG |
| J Rollins SS | 5 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .284 |
| S Victorino CF | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | .282 |
| C Utley 2B | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 | .303 |
| R Howard 1B | 5 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | .224 |
| P Burrell LF | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | .289 |
| S Taguchi PR-LF | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .213 |
| G Jenkins RF | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 | .260 |
| P Feliz 3B | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | .255 |
| C Ruiz C | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .231 |
| C Hamels P | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .316 |
| C Durbin P | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .200 |
| Totals | 35 | 8 | 12 | 8 | 4 | 8 | 13 | |
| BATTING 2B: S Victorino (14, B Colon) 3B: P Burrell (1, J Lopez); R Howard (2, M Timlin) HR: J Rollins (6, 1st inning off B Colon 0 on, 0 Out); R Howard 2 (19, 1st inning off B Colon 1 on, 1 Out; 3rd inning off B Colon 0 on, 0 Out) RBI: J Rollins 3 (25), R Howard 4 (62), C Utley (62) S: C Hamels 2-out RBI: R Howard Runners left in scoring position, 2 out: G Jenkins 2, C Utley 1 Team LOB: 8 |
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| FIELDING DP: 1 (P Feliz-C Utley-R Howard). |
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[I'll put the answer after the jump so you can make you're own guess.]
It all seems pretty normal until you get about 3/4 down the page and notice 3b: P Burrell (1, J Lopez); R Howard (2, M Timlin). That’s right: Pat Burrell and Ryan Howard tripled in the same game.
According to my research, Pat Burrell has 12 career triples in 1219 games. When not being chased by the cops with Jason Michaels, he is the slowest human being on the planet. Last year I pitched a show idea to Comcast Sportsnet called The Amazing Race 2 in which Burrell raced a 97-year-old woman around the bases while a crane dangled Heather Mitts’ new cell phone number like a carrot (they haven’t called me back).
Ryan Howard isn’t exactly Steve Jeltz, either. He has 4 triples in 481 career games. I haven’t done a math problem since high school, but someone out there can compute the probability of something that happens once every 101 games and once every 120 games happening within two innings of each other. I’m surprised Tom McCarthy didn’t get struck by lightning while reporting on the Phillies favorite bedtime snacks from the roof in the 7th inning.
If that ever happens again I will buy a baseball, cut it open, unravel it, and eat the entire thing.
Bonus: Here is some video of Burrell legging out an infield single earlier in the season. More to come throughout the day.
June 17th, 2008 at 8:16 am
Watching those two leg out triples is like watching a turtle race with only one turtle- and that turtle has a load in its pants. How bout Cole Trickle with the best batting average on the team?