Missing Mookie

Start with a sprint, then jog quickly in, make a not-so-simple basket catch below his knees, spin around (at one point having both feet off the ground), and without taking any time at all to gauge exactly where the plate might be, uncork a throw that was right on the fucking money to nail the runner by a foot or two. And all of it performed as casually as he might flick the light switch off as he distractedly wanders out of a room . . . damn. I miss Mookie.

Here is another post of Mookie Betts being really good at baseball. Enjoy. 👍

(via @Dodgers) pic.twitter.com/X2Zwkfb882

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) June 10, 2021

The broadcast cuts to the runner in the middle of the play rather than showing the eye-popping throw from Mr. Betts (naturally, because no one in baseball ever learns a fucking thing), which allows me to post these wise words yet again:

Unfortunately . . . the stupid fucking broadcast was showing a shot of literally the absolute least dramatic, exciting, uncertain part of the play, which is a guy running in a straight fucking line to exactly the place I already knew he was going to go.

Why do this? Was there some uncertainty about which direction [the runner] would go? Whether he'd run there or skip or do a series of forward rolls or pull out a sword and yell "Charge!" and attempt to skewer the catcher with it? The only interesting thing that can happen with the runner, once he tags up, is if he somehow stumbles and falls on his face. How often does that happen? Is there any plausible reason to expect that it might, and therefore that you had better be sure to show him running, in a straight fucking line to the least surprising destination imaginable, instead of showing the only interesting thing happening on the field? . . .

Show the fucking throw! If the runner happens to stumble and fall or spontaneously combust or gradually get larger as he runs toward the plate so that by the time he gets there he is Godzilla and he simply squashes the catcher beneath one giant scaly foot, we can see that shit on the replay. There is nothing special about [a runner] running down the third-base line. . . .

Conservatively, I would estimate that baseball broadcasts make this infuriating choice roughly 900,000 percent of the time, and I always, always, always hate it.