1 weird highlight for each new 2023 HOF candidate

There are 14 new names on the 2023 Baseball Writers’ Association of America Hall of Fame ballot. We will find out Tuesday on MLB Network if anyone from this group or the 14 returning names will join Fred McGriff in Cooperstown this summer.

If you want to know more about each first-timer’s case for enshrinement, here is a good start. If you want to see those same All-Stars and World Series champions in odd or funny situations on the diamond, you’ve come to the right place.

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These new candidates tasted plenty of glory during their decade-plus in the Majors. But because baseball is also super weird, they've seen their fair share of strange moments, too. In this alphabetical list, we'll spotlight one such moment for each player.

Bronson Arroyo
Arroyo spent June 12, 2000, preparing to make his Major League debut. The right-hander had just been called up from the Minors and was scheduled to start the next day’s game for the Pirates against the defending National League champions, the Atlanta Braves. A third-round Draft pick by Pittsburgh in 1995, Arroyo likely envisioned himself on the Three Rivers Stadium mound over and over again. Now that was less than 24 hours away from becoming a reality.

Then in the bottom of the sixth inning – probably while Arroyo sat deep in thought on the bench about his big moment to come – someone told him to grab a bat. He was going to make his debut now.

As a pinch-hitter.

Why did manager Gene Lamont choose a pitcher with no MLB experience to hit with his team leading 8-6 in the sixth? Feel free to make your own guesses. In any case, Arroyo put up a heck of a fight against Bruce Chen.

Arroyo was so unprepared for the at-bat, he was wearing tennis shoes instead of cleats. But as he explained after the game, at least he could see.

The next day, Arroyo would make the first of his 383 regular-season starts. He gave up five runs over five innings in a no-decision as the Pirates won, 7-6.

Carlos Beltrán
Beltrán was a premier defensive player early in his career. A three-time Gold Glove Award winner, he registered at least 10 Defensive Runs Saved per season while manning center field for the Mets from 2006-08.

But the impacts of aging eventually take their toll on everyone, and as Beltrán reached his age-40 season in 2017 with the Astros, he had basically become a DH-only contributor. Between May 16 and July 19 of that year, Beltrán appeared in 43 games for Houston and never once took the field on defense.

And thus, sadly, Beltrán's once-trusted glove passed away due to neglect.

On July 17, the Astros gave the leather a proper funeral in center field at Minute Maid Park, with Brian McCann apparently serving as the celebrant.

A miracle took place a couple of days later as Beltrán's glove rose from the grave against the Mariners.

Matt Cain
A three-time All-Star, Cain would not be described as a good hitting pitcher with a career OPS of .331 across 611 at-bats. However, he did hit seven home runs during his 13-year career with the Giants, and we’re going to focus on his first dinger, which was overshadowed just a little bit by one of his teammates.

No. 1 for Cain came in the bottom of the fifth inning against the Nationals’ Tim Redding on Aug. 8, 2007. He lined an offspeed pitch over the left-field wall in San Francisco – and almost missed stepping on first base.

It was a momentous occasion in Cain’s young career, but you will forgive the fans in attendance if Cain’s homer doesn’t stick out as their most vivid memory from this game. That’s because a few innings earlier, Barry Bonds clubbed No. 757 into McCovey Cove.

As such, Bonds and Cain share a bit of obscure, slightly convoluted home run history that will probably never be topped: That is the largest career home run differential between two players who went deep in the same game in which one of those players hit their first homer.

R.A. Dickey
Hey, do you wanna see a 102 mph knuckleball? Of course you do!

Really, that should just be the headline of this article. It would be phenomenal clickbait.

Well, without any further ado, here you go …

Dickey, the 2012 NL Cy Young Award winner, did throw a pretty hard knuckleball in his heyday, sometimes breaking 80 mph with it. But 102? That’s the work of a faulty radar gun.

Either that or the knuckleball was actually clocked at about 64 mph and then converted to kilometers per hour for the Toronto pitcher. That actually makes more sense.

Andre Ethier
Nationals Park was the venue for the start of a marquee series on Sept. 15, 2017. The Dodgers were in town for a three-game set between the two best teams in the National League. Ethier, who made his season debut just a couple of weeks earlier after dealing with a back injury, helped break the game open with a run-scoring ground-rule double that hopped over the tall wall in right.

What’s so weird about that? Just watch Jayson Werth.

Well, it looks like a line drive in the box score. The play included the penultimate extra-base hit and RBI of Ethier’s regular-season career. He retired following the season with 499 and 687, respectively.

Jacoby Ellsbury
This spot was almost claimed by the legend known only as Tacoby Bellsbury. But we must recognize how the former Red Sox and Yankees outfielder owns one of the stranger records in AL/NL history.

Ellsbury reached base via catcher’s interference 31 times during his 11-year career; no other player has done that more often. He knocked Pete Rose off the top spot in 2017. One year earlier, Ellsbury reached base via catcher’s interference 12 times, which was more than any single-season team total up to that point.

Opposing catchers knew of Ellsbury's tendencies. It was part of their scouting report. But it just kept happening. It even occurred during the playoffs.

In celebration of Ellsbury's place in baseball lore, let’s look back to July 28, 2015, when he reached base via catcher’s interference against the Rangers – twice.

That was the sixth occasion in AL/NL history in which a player reached base via catcher's interference more than once in a single game. It was the first time in a game that multiple catchers on the same team got called for interference.

J.J. Hardy
The Orioles turned two triple plays in 2017. One of them was fairly standard, as far as triple plays go.

One of them was not.

With runners on first and second, Hardy drifted back into shallow left field at Fenway Park to catch a Jackie Bradley Jr. popup.

The play initially looked disastrous as the ball fell to the grass, but two things were in the Orioles' favor as Hardy, a three-time Gold Glove winner, quickly gathered the ball.

1. No umpire signaled for an infield fly, which kept the force plays intact at first and second base.

2. Bradley never bothered to reach first base and was thrown out, 6-4-3.

Here is this masterpiece in all its glory.

John Lackey
By the start of 2017, Lackey sported an impressive list of Major League accomplishments. He was a member of three World Series-winning teams. He won an ERA title and made the AL All-Star squad in 2007. He had pitched more than 2,600 innings through a 14-season career.

But he hadn’t yet attempted a stolen base. So, on Aug. 16, 2017, Lackey singled versus the Reds’ Homer Bailey and then figured he might as well try his luck. As the 38-year-old said after the game, “It looked like it was pretty easy.”

Lackey took off while Bailey looked in for the 0-1 pitch and clearly caught everyone off guard. Bailey was too late to recognize Lackey rumbling into second as his throw to the bag was late. The triumphant pitcher gave a cheeky shrug toward his dugout as he stood atop the base.

But life comes at you fast on the basepaths, and Lackey’s happy feet got him in trouble just a few pitches later. On a 3-2 offering to Ben Zobrist, Lackey got caught between second and third and was ultimately picked off on what was ball four.

Mike Napoli
Napoli had a lot of worthy candidates to make this list, all of them centering on his tremendous power. Remember when he hit a ball out of Progressive Field? And then did it again during the playoffs?

He once hit a home run with a bat that had been shorn off at the handle. He sent one ball into the top deck at Toronto. Napoli bashed balls so far, scoreboards begged him for mercy.

But in keeping with this article’s developing theme of “Players doing things they aren’t known for doing,” let’s take a look at Napoli legging out a triple.

On May 24, 2016, everything was dandy for the Cleveland first baseman as he slugged a ball to left-center, driving in two runs. As the White Sox dropped the cutoff throw from the outfield, there was no play to be made on the hustling Napoli at third, but the big man decided to dive in head-first anyway.

One problem: Napoli ended up sliding right onto his face.

You know Napoli's teammates weren’t going to let the veteran forget about that graceful move. The next day, his successful face flop was immortalized in Cleveland’s dugout.

Jhonny Peralta
In last year's edition of this article, we included an inside-the-park home run from Jimmy Rollins as his fun highlight. That’s a feat you might expect from a speedy player who stole 470 bases in the Majors.

You wouldn’t expect it from someone such as Peralta, who stole all of 17 bases through 15 years in the bigs. But he made the 360-foot dash on July 18, 2010, against the Tigers after driving a ball to straightaway center field.

It probably helped that a leaping Ryan Raburn crashed through an outfield gate and nearly ended up in Cleveland’s bullpen. Regardless, here is the first and only inside-the-park homer of Peralta’s career.

Peralta, who was signed by Cleveland at the age of 16 in 1999, would spend just 10 more days with the franchise following that exciting roundtripper. On July 28, he was traded to Detroit.

Francisco Rodríguez
Everyone can relate to how the man known as “K-Rod” was feeling on Aug. 11, 2005, in Oakland. We’ve all experienced times when something gets under our skin, causes us to lose focus and ultimately ruins our day. But unlike the rest of us, Rodríguez had such a moment in full public view.

The Angels’ closer entered in the bottom of the ninth inning, looking to push a 4-4 game into extra innings. With runners on second and third and two outs, all he needed to do was retire Eric Chavez.

The at-bat didn’t start well for Rodríguez, who was not pleased that his first offering was called a ball. Everything spiraled from there.

As Rodríguez glared toward the home-plate umpire, he made a nonchalant stab at the throw from the catcher. The ball proceeded to bounce off the top of the mound and roll perilously toward second.

Jason Kendall took advantage of the lapse, bolted for home and slid in safely ahead of the pitcher’s desperate throw. The A’s celebrated while Rodríguez sat with a stunned expression behind the mound.

Of course, Rodríguez would rebound and ultimately retire as one of six Major League relievers with at least 400 saves. But this clip lives on in infamy.

Huston Street
We’re going to cheat a little bit with Street’s highlight. We couldn’t find anything that happened to him on the field that was worthy of this list. But the 13-year Major League reliever knows how to have some fun, and he did so on the streets of New York City with the MLB Fan Cave crew early in the 2011 season.

The premise was simple: What happens when Huston Street walks around Midtown Manhattan and asks people, “Where is Houston Street?”

Hilarity ensues.

Jered Weaver
We’ve seen what happens when living things have the misfortune of being in the path of an oncoming baseball. But if Randy Johnson nailing a bird with a blazing fastball is the sport’s equivalent of death metal, this Weaver pitch is something closer to Edvard Grieg’s “Morning Mood.”

There is a poetry to this 76 mph changeup from Weaver to Joey Wendle in 2016. It’s not evident at first, but the slow-motion replay shows the ball and a wayward dragonfly fluttering through the frame.

Weaver, a three-time All-Star, was never known as one of baseball’s hardest throwers. Perhaps the ball would have only knocked the insect slightly off course if it had made contact.

Jayson Werth
We will close with another moment involving Werth, but this one is less embarrassing for him (probably) than losing Ethier's fly ball in the sky.

In a battle between two first-place clubs, the Nationals had just defeated the Cubs, 5-4, thanks to Werth’s walk-off single in the 12th inning. It was his second game-winning hit of the week in June 2016. And the hirsute outfielder was absolutely amped for the postgame interview. Fortunately, someone in the production truck knew when to use the “bleep” button.