I spent a good portion of last night listening to Game 7 of the NLCS on the radio last night. For those of you that missed it, the highlight of the game was Mets centerfielder Endy Chávez’ amazing grab in the sixth inning, saving the Mets from what should have been a two-run homer.
Josh Levin, my editor over at Slate, has a great piece stacking up this play to the most famous baseball catch in history, Willie Mays’ The Catch during the 1954 World Series. Josh talked with Arnold Hano, a baseball writer who captured Mays’ astonishing play.
Josh writes:
[Hano] explains that the great Mays backtracked to the 460-foot mark in the Polo Grounds. “He outran the ball, he caught it with his back to the stands, and he whirled to make the throw.” When Chávez caught the ball, Hano says, he was 360 feet from home plate. “I don’t want to downgrade this play, it was a marvelous play,” he says. “It may be that the stands are a little closer today and therefore you can make that catch.”
I’m with Hano on this one. A 460-foot catch is far more impressive than a 360-foot catch.
In other news for you to ponder this weekend, Kim Jong Il says he’s “sorry“, and Becky and I are going to visit my folks in Santa Monica. Not that those two things are related, mind you.
