Baseball is a beautiful game. It’s tradition. It’s the fresh cut smell of the grass before the first pitch. It’s the ball park on a hot summer’s day with hot dogs and beers in-hand. It’s stylish steals, big dingers and unbelievable catches. Its America’s greatest pastime… and sometimes, Baseball is just plain goofy and weird.
For as intense and competitive as the game gets, there's often just as much weird and wonderful light-heartedness that occurs in 9 innings. So, without further ado here’s a few of our favourite bizarre baseball moments from April 2021!
Joc Pederson Gets a Waffle Iron
It was a big day for the Cubs newest slugger, Joc Pederson on April 7th - who started the regular season leading off for Chicago after a monster Spring training outing - he delivered for the cubbies on that Wednesday afternoon hitting his first home-run of the season. And for his efforts he was rewarded with… a waffle iron? Yep, you did read that correctly!
It turns out that Cubs outfielder, Ian Happ, has had the breakfast themed prop in the dugout since the 2018 season - breaking it out whenever his teammates ‘waffle’ a pitch.
Nacho Home Run
It’s happened thousands of times over the years but there’s something simply awesome about seeing somebody nab a homer from the stands. And one smiling fan got a ball to remember when Justin Turner went yard against the Rockies on April 15th. The ball went sailing off into left centre-field, and one Dodgers fan got a big surprise when the ball landed smack in the middle of his Nachos! Despite the cheesy mess, the fan was smiling throughout, and JT even graciously got someone to replace his snack.
That’s definitely a one of a kind ball - with a brilliant story to go alongside it.
The Saga of Anthony Rizzo & Freddie Freeman
Episode 1: The Rundown
When players are mic’d up there’s usually some antics abound and that’s exactly what happened on April 18th when Anthony Rizzo was mic’d up as Cubs went up against the Braves. At the top of the fourth, Freddie Freeman found himself in a rundown while attempting to advance from second to third base on a sacrifice fly from Travis d'Arnaud. Rizzo incited the rundown, tossing the ball to Kris Bryant at third before David Bote got ahold of it.
Eventually it found its way back to Rizzo’s glove, and a chase ensued. Smiling wide, Rizzo yelled to Freeman - ‘Fredrick! Freddie!!’ Before tossing the ball to Javy Baez who made the tag out.
Episode 2: The Strike-Out
The mischief continued 10 days later at Truist Park. With the Braves up 10 - 0 and the Cubs on the verge of a blowout, manager David Ross let Rizzo take the mound as Freeman was shortly due up the plate at the bottom of the seventh.
Rizzo took the mound to face the reigning National League MVP and neither player could hide their smiles. Rizzo succeed with his goal, striking out Freeman with a 61mph curveball, and shutting down the sluggers chance to hit 5 for 5 on the night. He left the game with a career ERA of 0.00. On a difficult night for the Cubs, this was the light-hearted injection of fun the dugout needed!
Will the Rizzo / Freeman saga continue even further? Here’s hoping so because it’s incredibly joyous - both of these moments radiated the pure fun of baseball and reminded us that every big leaguer is still just a boy playing ball in their backyard at heart.
It doesn’t get much better than that.
No comments:
Post a Comment