Mini Newsletter: 6-4-3
Six...four...three
With the first homestand of 2024 now behind us, I had always planned on a small check-in newsletter before the Padres play in the Giants’ home opener tomorrow afternoon in SF.
Not much new on the Giants…we just saw them last weekend at Petco.
The Padres, meanwhile, beat the Cardinals 3-2 yesterday behind six great innings from Joe Musgrove, a historic day from catcher Kyle Higashioka, and four double plays: three of the traditional variety, as well as a strike-’em-out/throw-’em-out in the top of the fourth inning.
It’s that final GIDP that I want to chat about today, though.
With closer Robert Suarez being called on to get five outs, he was in obvious need of a double play to get out of the eighth and move things along.
And, well, he got it…
Now before we get going, I hate—HATE—calling attention to myself. Just not my personality. And one of my core beliefs of this job is that what I do is always about highlighting the world class athletes who are doing the amazing things on the field, not myself.
Sometimes, though, something we say turns into a little bit of a “thing,” and that’s what happened yesterday.
So here’s the full story…
Several years ago, Mark Grant told me of this time he swore that TBS/Braves legend Skip Caray closed out a game saying something like “The Magnificent Seven are next, just as soon as so-and-so grounds into a 6-4-3 double play.” And then, the story went, the guy hit the very next pitch to short, and Skip, with absolute panache, said “6…4…3.”
I loved the story. LOVED it. But I wasn’t always sure I believed it.
It just sounded like one of those apocryphal tales that gets told around baseball and broadcasting and maybe something like that may have sorta happened once, but no way it was exactly like that, right?
And then last January:
PROOF. Perfect, incredible proof.
My level of excitement was exceedingly high. Not only was the story true, but it was pretty much exactly how Mud had told it to me.
So.
He and I have regularly talked about trying to pull it off. And we’ve definitely tried a couple of times. The beauty of the trick, of course, is that you say something like that, and it doesn’t happen, it’s a total throwaway line that no one notices. But when you get it right, well, it’s a lot of fun. And yesterday we had a lot of fun1.
BTW, I don’t know how to grab and post the full clip, but the one that went around social media yesterday stops just before my homage to Skip…in my worst impersonation ever, I dropped “win, win, win.”
The kicker? Skip’s son Chip Caray was two booths down working the game for Cardinals TV.
Baseball <3
PS—Credit to my buddy Ben Higgins of 97.3 The Fan & Channel 10 for appreciating and sharing the moment. And if anyone actually has a list of favorite double play calls, it’s definitely Ben.
PPS—Shoutout to Twitter/X user Michael Aleles who caught the reference. That’s elite baseball listening.
The silence you hear after the ball hits Cronenworth’s mitt is actually Mud grabbing me and shaking me back and forth in excitement lol