Unassisted Triple Plays
The rarest type of triple play, and one of the rarest events of any kind in baseball, is for a single player to complete all three outs. Typically, this is achieved when an infielder catches a line drive near second or third base (one out), tags the base to double up the runner who started play there (two out) and tags an advancing runner before he can return to his original base (three out).
The most recent unassisted triple play in Major League Baseball occurred on August 23, 2009 when Eric Bruntlett of the Philadelphia Phillies turned the first ever game-ending unassisted triple play in the National League. Playing against the New York Mets, in the bottom of the ninth inning with men on first and second, Jeff Francoeur hit a line drive up the middle, where Bruntlett (substituting for Chase Utley) was covering with both men moving. Bruntlett caught the ball, tagged second to double up Luis Castillo and then tagged Daniel Murphy from first, thereby completing the triple play. This was only the second game-ending unassisted triple play in MLB history and the first since 1927.
Read more about this topic: Triple Play
Famous quotes containing the words unassisted, triple and/or plays:
“The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed,
If thou the spirit give by which I pray;
My unassisted heart is barren clay,
Which of its native self can nothing feed;”
—Michelangelo Buonarroti (1474–1564)
“And we fairies, that do run
By the triple Hecate’s team
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream,
Now are frolic. Not a mouse
Shall disturb this hallowed house.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The key word in my plays is “perhaps.””
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)