Best Defensive Plays Ever
The definitive list
Nothing in sports compares to an incredible defensive play in baseball. You go from casual anticipation with each pitch, to excitement at the crack of the bat to amazement at the athletic feat you just witnessed. As a defensive expert, I feel I can credibly put together a video-aided list of the ten best plays in Major League history. And no, Derek Jeter’s stupid backhand flip isn’t here. Neither is that catch he made and then tripped into the stands. Only great plays here:
10. Kevin Mitchell’s barehanded catch, SF @ STL, 4/26/89
When I saw this catch as a kid, I thought it was the most impressive feat in sports history. Here I was as a kindergartner trying to figure out how to use a glove, and here’s Kevin Mitchell raising the stakes with a barehanded catch of a slicing foul ball. Any ball hit far over 300 feet is going fast enough to make a dent on flesh and bone, as any one who’s tried catching a foul ball can attest to. But he makes it look as easy as catching a floating football screen pass. Bonus points for robbing the greatest defensive shortstop of all time, Ozzie Smith, on this 1st inning out.
9. Eric Chavez flies into foul territory, OAK vs ATL, 6/10/03
For those that have had the privilege of attending a game at the Oakland Coliseum, you’re well aware of how much foul territory there is. If a pinch hitter walks too slowly from the dugout to the plate today, he’s already down 0-1 from a pitch clock violation. So watching Eric Chavez go max effort for a sinking foul ball with nothing but concrete steps, wood benches and maybe some raw sewage to stop him is all the more impressive. It was also a big play to get Rafael Furcal out in the top of 10th of a game the A’s would in the 12th with a walk-off home run off the Braves’ reliever: Jung Bong :)
8. Gary Matthews performs magic, TEX vs HOU, 7/1/06
Mike Lamb was robbed of a second home run on this day by Gary Matthews’ insane, twisting, back-to-the-field centerfield snag. Fun fact: we were supposed to be at this game on our baseball trip in 2006. We had 3 days in the DFW area, so instead I made the executive decision that we go to the next game, which would be a night game. So when we got back from a day of boating and saw this on SportsCenter, my decision-making was questioned. It was 95 degrees that day, though.
7. David Wright’s diving barehand, NYM @ SD, 8/9/05
I have no idea how Wright tracked this ball enough to perfectly grab it with his bare hand. He’s gotta dash from dirt to grass, his head is bouncing up and down the whole way trying to track this little bloop and then he pulls it in with the tips of his fingers before thudding to the turf. Crazy. Yet I could throw a tennis ball directly into my dog’s mouth and he’d still drop it.
6. Brooks in the World Series, BAL vs CIN, 10/10/70
Look how deep he’s playing in the infield. That’s already an almost impossibly long throw. Now make a lunging stab at the ball bouncing down the line, stumble to regain enough of your balance to reorient yourself and launch a fadeaway throw to first base 150 feet away. Lee May went an impressive 7 for 18 in the 1970 World Series, and against any other third baseman, that would be 8 for 18.
5. Jim Edmonds goes Superman, ANA @ KC, 6/10/97
This is one of the plays I’d love a POV angle on. That ball was a line drive to the wall, so when he turns his back to the plate and sprints dead straight, tracking that baseball must’ve been like trying to track a UFO the way it would’ve darted into view and seemed to race away at hyperspeed.
4. Rey Ordonez does the unnecessary, NYM vs HOU, 5/4/99
Rey Ordonez deserves his own Top 10, honestly. Maybe a Top 25. This play is the baseball equivalent of parkour. Rey Ordonez is the kind of person who would jump ledge to ledge and to a double-backflip at the mall while everyone else casually takes the escalator. There are so many fun parts of this play. It looks like a routine grounder up the middle. Al Leiter crumples over like an actor in a Life Alert commercial. Second baseman Edgardo Alfonzo is set up to field the ball like a regular human being, but probably not fast enough to get Richard Hidalgo at first. And then Ordonez somersaults into frame like some wild tumbleweed, fielding and throwing while still rolling and makes the play. Should’ve been worth two outs to be honest.
3. Mike Trout levitates
The slo-mo replay on this ridiculous. The wall height at Camden Yards in center is 7 feet. When he makes the catch, his shoulder is about a foot above that and his arm is fully extended. That ball might be 11 or 12 feet up in the air still when it goes in his glove. The last time I saw someone jump like that, he was dunking over a Kia:
2. Junior doing Junior things, SEA @ DET, 8/9/98
Take that last catch, but add in a Dave Niehaus call and the Ken Griffey Jr. swagger and you have a robbery that ranks #2 all-time. It was hard to only have one Griffey play on the list. Any of his top 10 plays would be almost everyone else’s best play ever except:
1. Willie Mays’ Masterpiece
This play has its own Wikipedia page. Mays made this play in the World Series at the Polo Grounds in the 8th inning of a tied game. Vic Wertz hit a ball that was caught by Mays about 425 feet from home plate. That is a home run in every ballpark today by a comfortable margin. That was only the first out of the inning, with two runners on. His catch saved at least two runs and a triple, possibly inside-the-park HR. The Giants got out of the inning and won the game in extra innings, and ultimately the World Series. The crazy thing is Mays himself says he made at least two catches that were better, but footage of those does not exist.
Honorable Mention: Me!
It was the bottom of the 7th in the 2004 Intramural Dorm Softball championship at Cal Poly. The grass was wet after a spring shower. I was patrolling deep left field when a sinking liner was heading into the gap and then —
Oh I see you’re falling asleep. Well fine, I won’t tell the story. Here’s me celebrating afterward with our “champagne”:
