The most exciting play

Julia ♦ April 9, 2022 ♦ 4 Comments

Eight-year-old Drew, during his first year of playing baseball, Vandenberg AFB, CA, 1992.
He hit a lot more triples than home runs — no wonder I like triples!

“The triple is the most exciting play in baseball. Home runs win a lot of games, but I never understood why fans are so obsessed with them.”  — Hank Aaron

In typical fashion, Aaron turns the spotlight away from himself to voice an opinion I was relieved to read.  I thought I was the only one who loved triples better than home runs.

There’s something slightly anti-climactic about a home run, even when it cleans up the bases or ends the game.  With a home run, you’re there.  With a triple, it’s that sweet moment when victory is in your grasp, but not quite yours.

Singles put men on base and doubles bring them home, but triples are in a class by themselves; they are the epitome of achievement, where the hitter/runner delivers more than expected, pushing the tension to its very limit.  You’ll never see an arrogant batter jogging lazily around the bases in a triple.

As some of us celebrate the opening of another baseball season, remember that the greatest home run hitter of all time (STILL the greatest — Barry who?) understood the truth that getting there — especially when done with panache — is more than half of the fun.

This post was first published seven years ago today. The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, below. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.