Devil Rays manager Joe Maddon told Tampa-area reporters that there was more to speedy Carl Crawford being thrown out twice on the bases Tuesday than met the eye. Maddon said the dirt around first base had been thoroughly soaked and turned into a quagmire, which is why Crawford was thrown out twice in a game for the first time in his career.
“I don’t know if they had a sprinkler problem or whatever it may have been, but it was a little bit damp on the first-base side,” Maddon said.
Ron Washington notes in response that Jamey Wright’s delivery is really fast.
Speeding up or slowing down the basepaths to affect a team’s running game is one of the greatest traditions of groundskeeping. There’s a whole chapter of this in The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball if you’re interested in this kind of thing.
AP | 24-Apr-07 at 8:38 am | Permalink
Umm… That could explain why he got thrown out the first time, but fool me once….