Fails
Behold the dumbest play in baseball history
Full disclosure, I had never heard of Will Craig before today. Having not done fantasy baseball for a few years, admittedly, there are a lot of baseball players I haven't heard of. But I know who he is now—and that's not a good thing for the Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman.
That's because on Thursday, Will was responsible for the dumbest play in Major League Baseball history. This is not an exagerration. You'd have to go to a tee ball game to find something dumber. And even then, this might still be the dumbest play you'd see.
OK, let's set the stage. The Pirates are in the field for the top of the third inning while the Chicago Cubs bat. There's a runner on second with two outs and Javier Baez hits a ground ball to third. Should be the end of the inning, right? Wrong.
Pirates third baseman Erik Gonzalez pulls Craig off the bag with a wide throw, but it still beats Baez easily. All Craig has to do is go step on the bag. Instead, he decides to chase Baez, who starts going back toward home plate. We'd call this a smart baserunning move except this NEVER SHOULD HAVE WORKED! And yet, it did.
Craig took the bait, went after Baez, then when the runner on second was heading home, he flipped to his catcher, but it was too late. Again, he could have let that runner score! As long as he just touched first base before Baez it's the end of the inning! Instead, by the time the entire sequence was over, the Cubs had stolen a run and Baez was at second base. Unbelievable. Check it out:
No, I have not seen anything like this, MLB Twitter handle. You know why? Because it's the dumbest play in baseball history! Seriously, WTF? How does this happen? At the MAJOR LEAGUE level? Absolutely wild.
Anyway, tough day for Will Craig. Baseball fans are going to be seeing that one for a long time.