Let's all enjoy the very best baserunning shenanigans from the 2016 season
Major League Baseball is played by absurdly talented athletes at the top of their game -- men who can make a tiny white ball dance at high speeds while others manage to consistently hit that tiny white ball with a wooden stick.
But it's still, at heart, a game -- one capable of turning the most jaw-dropping performers into kids playing in the sandlot. And if you don't believe us, the 2016 season had the baserunning shenanigans to prove it.
The overwhelming majority of rundowns are a foregone conclusion -- stuck between two professional fielders without much room to operate, it's nearly impossible to avoid being tagged out. Brian Dozier eventually befell the same fate against Kansas City back in April, but he was determined to irritate the entire Royals infield (and the scorekeeper) first:
In a game against the Mets back in August, Tigers outfielder J.D. Martinez stood on second base in a tie game in the bottom of the eighth.
Except, well, he had no idea where the ball was. Martinez froze rounding third, and before he knew it,
By the time Martinez saw them coming,
Your everyday 1-3-6-5 putout
Elsewhere in Improbably Ingenious Mets Defense, we have this beauty of a play from their game against the D-backs just a few days later:
For those keeping score at home: With runners on the corners,
... at which point Segura decided to break for home, where he was promptly caught in a rundown that ended in your garden-variety 1-3-6-5 putout.
Everything Josh Harrison does comes with an undeniable flair. His infield defense is poetry in motion. He slides with the grace of an Olympic athlete. He even sings while he's on the job. So, despite getting caught in a rundown between third and home against the Padres back in August, he took a moment to get down with his bad self before being tagged out:
A great Minor League escape
Look at this photo:
Does that look like a man who's about to reach first base safely? If you answered "absolutely not," Birmingham Barons outfielder Courtney Hawkins asks you to kindly expand your baserunning imagination:
All of the fake hidden ball tricks
Baserunning can be a pretty anxiety-inducing experience. Not only do you have to worry about possible pickoff throws or advancing safely, but sometimes, infielders will even hide baseballs in their pockets or pretend to throw the ball back to the pitcher.
Fielders decided to introduce yet another trick into this environment of deception in 2016: the fake hidden ball trick. Poor
America's Third Baseman had quite an eventful year on the basepaths. There was the time
Or the time he decided to mess with
And, of course, that time he took "the basepath" to be more of a suggestion than a hard-and-fast rule: