Anyone who’s seen Moneyball no doubt remembers the scene at the end of the movie, when Jonah Hill’s Peter Brand shows Brad Pitt’s Billy Beane video of an Oakland Athletics farmhand hitting a home run without realizing it. Thursday’s game between the Gwinnett Stripers and Memphis Redbirds, Triple-A affiliates of the Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals, respectively, gave us the exact opposite.
Memphis third baseman Delvin Pérez clocked a ball to deep left field. He trotted around the bases, even pointing out to left field as he rounded second base. Pérez was roughly halfway between third base and home before he realized one significant detail. He had not hit a home run or even gotten a hit. A gust of wind knocked the ball down, right into the glove of Gwinnett’s left fielder, Justyn-Henry Malloy. It had barely even reached the warning track.
Trust us on this one, you will never see a better batter reaction to a fly out to left than this right here.
Still a simple F7 in the scorebook. pic.twitter.com/LwWph2AZOb
— Gwinnett Stripers (@GoStripers) September 23, 2022
You can almost hear the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme being played there, can’t you?
Baseball fans had a lot of fun with this one.
The admiration, the bat flip, the swagger, the shock, the embarrassment, the reactions … this has got it all. What a riveting story that's told in such a short amount of time. This is the baseball highlight of 2022.
– C.W. Gardner | Former U.S. Senate candidate#RideTheVibe https://t.co/rHzPdfJ9SM
— C.W. "Mr. 2000" Gardner🚪🖋⛏ (@cwg18) September 23, 2022
🤦♂️ what are we doing? https://t.co/7Oj8EQQpyt
— Sal Giardina † (@sGIARDINA21) September 23, 2022
OHHHHHHHHHH
That hurts – homie PIMPS this and makes it all the way around third before he realized it was caught on the warning track.
Dude's never living this down. https://t.co/IQaVOxGXwu
— Lindsay Crosby, big baseball guy (@CrosbyBaseball) September 23, 2022
This is AMAZING!!! https://t.co/O0o4sqMqhK
— Ben Heisler (@bennyheis) September 23, 2022
Where's the stop sign from the third base coach? https://t.co/kFlCtT0Eqo
— J.P. Hoornstra (@jphoornstra) September 23, 2022
https://twitter.com/SaraCivian/status/1573135291463995394
Even Pérez’s own team couldn’t help but laugh at this one.
I mean… if you can’t laugh at yourself who can you laugh at.. 🫣 #SCNotTop10 pic.twitter.com/VpezVj3g2d
— Memphis Redbirds (@memphisredbirds) September 23, 2022
Fortunately for Pérez, the ball was caught. So, the mistake didn’t cost his team anything, which might not have been the case had it hit off of the wall and he was trotting around the bases when the ball was in play. More good news for Pérez and the RedBirds, the night ended well, with Memphis defeating Gwinnett 6-1. That makes it a lot easier to laugh at this gaffe.
[Gwinnett Stripers on Twitter]
