A couple of weeks ago, Major League Baseball noted with appropriately little fanfare the scoring of its 2 millionth run, and though it might occasionally seem so, not all of the 2,000,000 runs in the game’s 146-year history have been scored against the Pirates.
Minnesota’s Josh Donaldson happened to score run No. 2,000,000 on a double by Nelson Cruz, but it will vanish even more quickly into total irrelevance than the 1 millionth run did in 1975, when Bob Watson scored for the Astros on a three-run homer by ex-Bucco Milt May.
In Watson’s case, previously unrecorded runs were eventually discovered, and in Donaldson’s, the imminent integration of stats and records from the Negro Leagues will render the whole thing moot.
But despite what sounds like a big baseball number, 2,000,000, runs are still generally considered hard to come by. On Tuesday, the Pirates homered without scoring a run, and on Wednesday, they managed exactly one despite getting eight walks.
For me, the best living proof of the runs-are-hard-to-come-by axiom is from my friend Jim DeStefano, who remembers that as a 13- or 14-year-old, he was on third base one day with all appropriate anticipation of scoring when the next batter roped an extra base hit toward the right field corner. Jim fled down the third base line, which happened to run parallel to the opposing bench, from where he heard “Foul! Foul!” Expecting no skullduggery, Jim stopped and jogged back toward third. The third base coach chose that moment to begin an interview. “What are you doing here?” “Foul ball,” Jim said, only to look to his right and spot the hitter rounding second. Jim turned and sprinted home (again), but was thrown out, having failed to score from third on a triple.
Because runs are hard to come by.
Anyway, on this non-occasion, I thought I’d list 10 runs that stick out to me from the entire history of baseball, or 0.000005 percent of ‘em, with the caveat that I missed most of the first 80 years. For reasons known to no one including me, they are arranged here chronologically.
— 1955: Jackie Robinson steals home, to the instantaneous rage of Yogi Berra in the World Series. I’m not sure post-season or All-Star Game runs necessarily count among the 2,000,000, but you could not possibly think that would stop me. The Yankees beat the Dodgers in five Series from 1947-56, but not this time. Due to the glorious absence of replay, Berra went to his grave thinking Robinson was out, and Robinson to his in full disagreement.
— 1956: Roberto Clemente scores to beat the Cubs 9-8 having just delivered the only walk-off inside-the-park grand slam in the game’s history at Forbes Field, July 25. Didn’t see it, but that sort of sticks out.
— 1962: Known industry-wide for his depressing defense, Mets catcher Choo Choo Coleman misses a swipe tag at home plate in the Polo Grounds, but in one of Choo Choo’s rare moments of good fortune, the runner misses the plate, the umpire makes no call, and the runner proceeds to the visitors dugout. According to long-time baseball writer Jay Dunn, under the rules in 1962, the run would count unless the Mets tagged the runner before the next pitch. Coleman ran into the dugout, could not remember who the runner was, and started tagging everyone in uniform. The runner, eyeing Coleman’s approach, bolted toward home, and was thrown out.
OK, not a run, but how could I not tell you that?
— 1963: Mets outfielder Jimmy Piersall, on the occasion of his 100th career homer run, runs the bases backwards. It only takes a month before the Mets release him, and only then because he’s hitting .194.
— 1970: Pete Rose freight-trains into catcher Ray Fosse at the plate with the winning run in the All-Star Game, breaking and separating Fosse’s shoulder and ensuring the Cleveland catcher would never play pain-free again. It’s the way the game was played in that era, but I think it was more about runs being hard to come by.
— 1986: Ray Knight scores standing up from second base on a ball that bleeds between the legs of Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner to win Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. The Mets, who had posted “Congratulations Red Sox!” on their home scoreboard minutes earlier anticipating a loss, won the Series two nights later, and more importantly (to me), it’s the only one of these runs I saw in person.
— 1992: Sid Bream, well, you know what? The hell with it.
— 1993: Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez stole home in the climactic scene of the iconic coming-of-age flick “The Sandlot,” still the last known instance of a Dodger, real or imagined, stealing home.
— 2011: Scott Cousins of the Marlins crashes into Giants catcher Buster Posey at home plate, ripping three of Posey’s ligaments and breaking his leg. Rules are changed so that the game is no longer played this way, and that is good.
— 2020: In Game 4 of the World Series, the winning run scores via classical slapstick in ways both joyous and hysterical. Trailing the Dodgers by a run in the bottom of the ninth, the Rays’ Brett Phillips lines a single to center with two runners aboard. Kevin Kiermaier scores the tying run as the ball kicks off centerfielder Chris Taylor’s glove, shooting far to his left. Taylor recovers in time to stop the winning run, but his throw home is so off line that it’s cut off by first baseman Max Muncy, who turns and fires another bad throw, pulling catcher Will Smith off the plate, away from the runner. Meanwhile, back on the base paths, Randy Arozarena is intent on scoring the winning run until he falls down between third and home. Smith, now with his back to the play and thinking Arozarena is probably not lying on the carpet 40 feet away, executes a desperate 360-degree sweep tag that accomplishes nothing other than to dislodge the ball from his glove. When that happens, Arozarena gets up and scores, sliding on his belly and pounding the plate.
That last one might be the greatest example yet of why the game is so much better with the ball in play than it is as an interminable negotiation of its so-called three true outcomes — strikeout, walk, home run.
I’ll leave you with the obligatory Carlinesque reminder that, in baseball, the whole object is to go home, and to be safe. Nobody said it would be easy.
