John Valentin, SS

The Setup:

The Seattle Mariners led the Boston Red Sox 2-0 to start the top of the sixth inning. Chris Nabholz was pitching for the Red Sox and gave up a leadoff single to center by Mike Blowers. Kevin Mitchell walked, putting runners on first and second with Marc Newfield coming to bat.

The Play:

With a 1-1 count on Marc Newfield, the Mariners started the runners. Newfield hit a line drive right at John Valentin, the Red Sox shortstop. He calmly jogged to second base for the second out. As he continued past second base, he nonchalantly reached out and tagged Kevin Mitchell who had given up and was walking with his head down in the baseline.

The Rest of the Story:

Just as with the Mickey Morandini triple play in 1992, there was confusion among the announcers as to what happened. As the players are running off the field at the end of the play, Ron Fairly, the color commentator for the Mariners says, “Wait, wait a minute. Wait a minute! Wait, that’s only two outs!” Dave Niehouse, the play-by-play announcer also seems confused. As they watch the replay, this time they see that Valentin reached out and tagged Mitchell. Fairly says, “Oh, oh he tags him. Okay that’s it.” Niehaus responds, “So how about that?” which is what Richie Ashburn said when he figured out the third out had been made on Morandini’s play.

It turns out that the announcers weren’t the only ones that were a little confused. Valentin was quoted after the game as saying that because Keith Mitchell running from first had given up, Valentin thought that the first two outs must have ended the inning, but he glanced at the scoreboard and saw that it showed no outs so he just reached out and touched Mitchell as he jogged by.

Valentin’s triple play was a little redemption after his error in the previous inning led to Seattle scoring an unearned run.

Just like Neal Ball after his unassisted triple play in 1909, Valentin led off the bottom of the inning. Like Ball, he hit a homerun. One of nine that year for Valentin.

The second base umpire who made the three out calls was Matt Winans. He was a minor league umpire who filled in for 28 games in 1994, the only games he ever worked in the Major Leagues.

Batting ninth for the Mariners that day was an 18 year old shortstop making his Major League debut; Alex Rodriguez went 0 for 3.