Three Men On What?
By John Hatcher
Being one of the unlucky ones to witness the fine defense by the hometown team on Monday night, I thought I would share an even worse base running blunder to cheer everyone up. Here it goes:
In August 1926, the Brooklyn Dodgers were playing a home game against the Boston Braves. Brooklyn had the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh with one out. Babe Herman was up. He hit a deep drive off the rightfield wall. The runner from third came home to score easily. The runner on second, Dazzy Vance, was the pitcher and, like a pitcher, held up to see if the ball would be caught. He made it halfway to home when he decided to stop and head back to third. Chick Fewster, the runner on first, was at the same time barreling towards third. Vance then gets caught in a rundown while Fewster is on third. Herman, meanwhile, had slid into to second. He looked and thought the runner caught in the rundown was Fewster. So he then proceeded to third.
What happened? Well, as you can guess, all three of them ended up standing at third base. The third baseman for the Braves, Eddie Taylor, was thoroughly confused and decided to just tag all three of them. The umpires ruled Vance safe, and Fewster and Herman out to end the inning. Babe Herman is probably the only guy in MLB history to double into a double play.
This incident actually has historical value because in Brooklyn the 20’s and 30’s would later be known as the "Three Men on Third" era of Dodger baseball. The Dodgers were a very bad team over that period. So before we get too caught up in an absolutely dreadful execution of a rundown, we are still experiencing an excellent era of Sox baseball. The Sox are still going to the playoffs and in the playoffs anything is possible.
Source: Lost Ballparks
