This summer on the 18U elite club baseball tournament circuit, I witnessed a catcher allow a passed ball on ball four, slowly saunter to said passed ball, throw the ball into centerfield when the batter took off to second when he realized the catcher had no shot at throwing him out because of the backstop's laziness, then drop a throw from the shortstop when the middle infielders decided not to get the ball to the pitcher, allowing the batter to score from third. In short, what I essentially observed was a kid scoring on a walk.
This may be worse only because it happened to major leaguers and not going-to-be freshman in college. Video of everybody's favorite douchehat White Sox, A.J. Pierzynski, scoring from first on a groundout to short.
Description of above video via Deadspin:
In the bottom of the seventh of yesterday's game against Oakland, White Sox shortstop Alexei Ramirez hit a grounder to the left side of the infield. Third baseman Adam Rosales and shortstop Cliff Pennington both went for the ball. Meanwhile, White Sox catcher and notable asshole AJ Pierzynski took off from first. Seeing that Rosales wasn't anywhere near the bag, Pierzynski rounded second and headed for third. Derek Norris, the Oakland catcher, spotted Pierzynski going for third and went to cover the bag. This left no one at the plate and Pierzynski was free to stroll on in for a run...
For everything awful there is to say about A.J., the guy is probably one of the more heads up baseball players around. (Most notably was the triple deke on a drop third strike in the 2005 playoffs against the Angels.) He always seems to pick up on other teams' mental mistakes and takes advantage of them. That's why I can't hate him, even though I want to. He's a smart baseball player. He just has the people skills of Buddy Ackerman. Regardless, I do know one thing, he wouldn't allow a kid to score on a walk.
Twitter @ZWMartin
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