Yesterday, for the first time in four years and only the thirteenth time in the modern history of baseball, Colorado Rockies’ shortstop Troy Tulowitzki completed an unassisted triple play:
DENVER (AP) -Colorado Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki turned a rare unassisted triple play in the seventh inning against the Atlanta Braves on Sunday.
Kelly Johnson and Edgar Renteria reached on singles and were running on a 3-2 pitch when Tulowitzki caught Chipper Jones’ line drive behind second base. The rookie stepped on the bag to double up Johnson, then tagged Renteria for the third out.
It was the 13th unassisted triple play in major league history and first since shortstop Rafael Furcal did it for Atlanta on Sept. 10, 2003, against St. Louis.
Pretty cool. Even more so when you watch the video:
You Tube pulled the video.
H/T: Brendan Loy
April 30th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Geez, no sooner do you get this up when YouTube pulls it (likely because MLB could sue). Still, this seems to be the way they happen most often. Unassisted triple plays need everything to converge at once, so a line drive hit straight to either the second basemen or shortstop with men on first and second and no outs makes for a relatively easy shot at getting an unassisted triple play.
April 30th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
It’s a great video. Amazingly enough, I saw a third baseman (a lawyer, at that!) on our church’s softball team NEARLY pull off the same feat. Unfortunately, he was so shocked at the opportunity that he merely performed the more common unassisted double play.