On the old dia­mond last evening, the Cincin­nati Reds pulled off what can only be described as a mir­a­cle play; a play so rare it has never occurred in major league his­tory.  Apro­pos, given that the Reds are baseball’s first pro­fes­sional franchise.

It was the top of the fifth inning at Great Amer­i­can Ball Park with the Reds in a rub­ber match against the Florida Mar­lins, the teams hav­ing split the first two games of the three-game set.

There were none out in that fate­ful inning, and with the score knot­ted at goose eggs, the Mar­lins had the bases drunk.

Reds start­ing pitcher Chad Pittman had given up a lead-off dou­ble to the Mar­lins Ramon Ter­razzo.  Then he’d plunked the Mar­lins star short­stop, Billy Barter, in the ribs.  The benches tensed for trou­ble, but Barter sig­naled to his mates that he under­stood the pitch to be a mis­take.  “I lost my slider,” said Pittman after the game, “it just got away from me.” Two men on.

Clean-up hit­ter Lance Berm now approached the dish and Florida’s man­ager, Rick Ramarula, called for the sac bunt. “I’ve never bunted at this level of ball,” said Berm, “but any­thing coach says, I try to do.”

“Lance looked fool­ish on the first pitch,” admit­ted Ramarula, “and I’d put him in a tough posi­tion.  I know he’s our run pro­ducer, but with none out, we needed Billy and Ramon to move up one sack.  Pittman had been pitch­ing well for the Reds.  But Lance is the ulti­mate team player.  I had faith in him.”

Berm’s sec­ond bunt attempt cer­tainly bore all the ear­marks of a little-practiced exer­cise – he squibbed the ball down the third base line.  But the lack of his exper­tise played into Berm’s hand.  The ball went almost nowhere.  And although he was pre­pared for the sac­ri­fice, Reds third base­men Alan Treelo was forced to make a bare-handed grab for the ball, did not get the han­dle, and bounced his throw to first base­man Brent Ban­bury.  Ban­bury could not come up with the toss, E-5, all hands safe.

The stage was set.

Mar­lins fifth-place hit­ter is their much feared portly right fielder, Aberto “Bam-Bam” Endocino.

Through an inter­preter, Endo­cino said “I rel­ish these sit­u­a­tions.  Men on base; game on the line. I was look­ing for a first pitch fast ball.”

And that is exactly what Pittman and his bat­tery mate, Edguardo Veet had decided to offer.

“The only prob­lem was,” said Veet, “that Chad missed the spot.”

“I crushed it,” said Endo­cino in Spanish.

A scream­ing line drive down the third base line, des­tined for the deep cor­ner of the right field fence. The run­ners were off with the crack of the bat, fore­see­ing a crooked num­ber going up on the score board.

But one bounce in front of Treelo that shot up a spray of infield rub­ble rock­eted the ball into his glove and almost knocked him over.  “I wanted to make up for the embar­rass­ing error on the pre­vi­ous play,” he said.  “You never want to let your team down.”

Treelo came up gun­ning, wiring the ball to catcher Veet.  Veet toed home plate.  Ter­razzo was a dead duck — one out.  He fired the ball back to Treelo, who stood on third.  Barter, approach­ing with­out a thought of slid­ing, gawked as the umpire threw his thumb into the air. Two out.  Treelo relayed the ball to sec­ond base­man Her­re­rio Valde­spina who had just reached sec­ond base, a step before the bewil­dered Berm. Three out.  With­out even think­ing, Valde­spina pirou­et­ted and threw on to Ban­bury at first, his peg beat­ing the lum­ber­ing Endo­cino down the line, four out.

And there it was, the rarest of the rare, a quadru­ple play.

“Man,” said Pittman, “I was pumped.  Great play by the guys behind me.  They’re always giv­ing a hun­dred and ten percent.”

“I have not seen that play since the sand­lots of my youth,” said Endo­cino.  “It is a myth­i­cal play and I am lucky to have been involved.”

“The bonus for us,” said back­stop Veet, “is that we started the top of the sixth with the Mar­lins down one out already.”

It was cer­tainly the high point of the evening, per­haps even of the year, but the rest of the game proved pedes­trian as the Reds eked out a 2–1 vic­tory with the win­ning run scored in the sev­enth when Wally Fur­long plated his brother Dick on a sac­ri­fice fly.

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