The CJ Cup Byron Nelson

TPC Craig Ranch



The Loop

A Kentucky minor-league team just delivered the best double play you'll see all season

Screen Shot 2019-07-22 at 2.02.03 PM.png

These days, double plays are nothing special. Sure, they're great when they bail your closer out of a jam in the ninth, but in a baseball world that's pumping out four-man outfields, state championship-winning triple plays and dingers by the dinger bucketful, the ol' double play has become little more than a staple—the mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner, if you will. Every now and then, however, a double gets turned that's so incredibly, wonderfully beautiful that you can't help but dedicate an entire little corner of the Internet to its worship. Ladies and gentleman, look upon the glory and weep:

Paint this on vases and chapel ceilings for future civilizations to behold. It all starts with sharply hit grounder up the middle that takes a tricky hop off the mound, which forces the second baseman to fully extend, flipping the ball to the shortstop, who comes screaming over to cover second, barehanding the relay before spinning 360 degrees to his blindside in one fluid motion while firing a one-hopper to first to beat the runner. It's far more than a double play. It's a work of art.

The Florence Freedom, who play in the Frontier League, still went on to lose the game, but hundreds of years from now, no one will remember the boxscore. They will simply marvel, faces pressed to cave paintings dancing in the torchlight, in the glory of 2019 CE's greatest double play.