The Loop
The first MLB web gem of 2020 is here and it’s a doozy
It’s July 8th, 2020 and we have yet to see a meaningful MLB game. It’s been kind of a weird year, in case you haven’t noticed. But things are trending toward baseball and on Wednesday the MLB took a big step when intersquad games kicked off all across the Heartland (and beyond.) It wasn’t “real baseball”—whatever that means this year, with a universal DH and 60 game season on tap—but we were granted the first “real” web gem of the season, and boy was it worth the wait.
It doesn’t matter who, what, when, where, or even why, that is a SC Top 10 worthy grab if we’ve ever seen one. Not much is expected of the Tigers this season and even less of outfielder Derek Hill, but this an absolute beauty with shades of Willie Mays all over it (yes, yes, we know Willie did his in a World Series, but the Polo Grounds were also something like 430 to center.)
Hopefully in two weeks time we’ll have baseball highlights of consequence to drool over. Walk-off RBIs, clutch double plays, game-ending punch outs, and of course web gems just like this one. But if this is it—if the whole world teeters over the edge and baseball goes with it—then Hill’s grab should stand as a fitting monument to America's onetime pastime.