Smartest Plays in Baseball History

Plays like these make me wish that baseball existed

The 50-ft lead in the outfield was WILD. Somebody was thinking late into the night and cackling madly over that plan.

Regarding the Johnny Bench play, when Ty Cobb was player-manager of the Tigers, he ordered a similar play on Babe Ruth. Cobb was managing from centerfield and yelled to the pitcher to intentionally walk Ruth. The pitcher gave Cobb a slight look of disagreement. The catcher yelled to the pitcher to just follow orders and walk Ruth. The catcher stood for the intentional walk, but at the last second the pitcher threw a strike one fastball. Expecting a ball, the Babe didn’t swing. Cobb yelled again from the outfield, pretending to be angry, ordering an intentional walk. The catcher appeared irritated and berated the pitcher for trying to lose the game by letting Ruth hit. But the next pitch was another strike. Ruth expected a ball. Then Cobb ran to the mound and pretended to chew out the pitcher, threatening to not only take him out of the game, but bench him and fine him for disobeying. Some of the infielders came in to calm things down. The frustrated pitcher finally agreed to walk Ruth. Knowing Cobb’s style as a manager, Ruth and the Yankees bought it. The theatrics paid off and the next pitch was strike three.

I heard a story in Ken Burns' Baseball about the 19th century player King Kelly. In those days, to enter a game off the bench, you would announce yourself. In one game, a popup came towards Kelly's dugout, and he stepped onto the field, said, "Kelly now catching for Boston," and caught the ball, and the batter was called out.

“If he tries to pick off the runner in right field” is such a wild statement had me laughing out loud

the kentucky play was actually genius

Me whenever baseball doesn’t exist posts 🎉

Capps jumping two feet off the rubber to pitch is still wild to me.

That last pitch was a damn ball 😆 the ump didn’t want to ruin the “smartest” play of all time and just went with the catcher’s reaction

The hitting the batter to stop stealing from home is something I never heard of

I still think Freddie Freeman's 4th out, Kyle Tucker's appeal breaker, and Jason Varitek running for the fielder instead of the base were all smarter MLB plays than the A's fake intentional-walk-to-set-up-the-double-play. Edit: Even the 1st-and-3rd with Kentucky's runner-falling-down distraction and the high school runner leading off in shallow right were better

nah somebody give the batter at 3:16 a medal. He made contact AND got it safely onto the ground

yet we still have the infamous javy baez play 🤣🤣

Hold On.. On the Freeman 4th Out play.. After the Ump calls the guy at 1st out for the 3rd out, wouldn’t the play be dead? Even though he’s eventually safe, can’t the runner going to 3rd say he stopped cause the Ump called the 3rd out which should automatically kill the play.. I feel like after being called safe from the challenge, the runner should have to go back to 2nd or whatever base he’s on when the original call was made.. How can they allow the play to keep going??

11:30 the rubber is 60’6” away from the rear point of home plate

That Freddie freeman play was insane

No way that Rollie Fingers Pitch was a strike 😂 That was waaay outside 🤣

i don’t even watch baseball but i love this channel and the thing one thing i do find so interesting about baseball is that all the most interesting, important, or intriguing moments in the sport happen in between the actual moments of the sport being played. so many weird rules, caveats, and traditions that ultimately lead to such interesting stories

As an Astros fan, I'm humbled. I thought Tucker was a damn idiot when I saw that game. Dude's a damn genius!

Show this to a person just learning the rules of baseball to explode their brain