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Willie Mays - The Catch

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    Willie Mays - The Catch

    Am I missing something? Anyone could catch that, with those big gloves of theirs.
    Last edited by diggedy derek; 30-09-2018, 18:29.

    #2
    74 years ago, today.

    A) Glove or not, catching a baseball is harder than it looks. Especially while running. And the gloves then aren’t as capacious as the ones they use now.

    B) Catching s baseball over the shoulder is very hard because it’s hard to track. As you can see from the film of the catch, he changes course mid run to adjust.

    C) Center field in the Polo Ground was abnormally deep. So it was a long way. Mays had to run really far and fast to get to it and caught it on the run.

    D) He followed the catch with an amazing throw to the infield which prevented a run. Usually a guy on second would score easily on a ball hit that far.

    E) It’s remembered as much as a remarkable “moment” rather than just a difficult play. It led to the Giants winning the series. It was on TV in the earliest days of TV. It was in Manhattan. A few years later the Giants were gone, so it stands out in the memories of Giants fans.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Catch_(baseball)
    Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 29-09-2018, 21:06.

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      #3

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        #4
        A legend. I wouldn’t disagree with anyone who says that he was the greatest ever.

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          #5
          That picture would be more helpful with a baseball for scale.

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            #6
            The webbing between the thumb and forefinger is not quite as high from top to bottom as a ball. The glove is much smaller than what contemporary outfielders wear.

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              #7
              Aha, OK, that changes things totally. I guess like the Gerrard strike in the West Ham cup final, it was a turning point, so the context's the thing. Still reckon I'd have caught it though.

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                #8
                You remain massively full of shit.

                A number of us could have caught it had we been standing where the ball was about to land. The chances of any of us being able to run the 40 or so yards that Mays did and then catch it before it did so are exceedingly small.

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                  #9
                  The existing film clips don’t really do justice to how far and fast he had to move to make the play.



                  And you’re underestimating how hard it is to catch a ball coming over one’s head. Go down to the park and try to do it a few times at full speed.

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                    #10
                    I'm giving dd the benefit of the doubt of actually having a sense of the latter because he's played cricket.

                    Though no cricketer will have ever run as far to make a catch like that as Mays did.

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                      #11
                      The most underrated part of the play remains Mays horking a missile back to the infield. Because Larry Doby could have tagged up from second and scored, that’s how far the ball was hit.

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                        #12
                        The closest cricket catch I've seen was one by Rod Marsh in World Series cricket. Marsh ran a very long way back, misjudged it more than Mays and then recovered with an extraordinary backwards dive. He didn't have to throw the ball back though.

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                          #13
                          I wish all stadiums were that deep to center field. Great outfield plays, relay throws to the plate, etc are more exciting than home runs.

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                            #14
                            With the clubhouses above the wall (but below the scoreboard) and an exit to the Elevated, so that people in the box seats could leave the ballpark by traversing the field.

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                              #15
                              Originally posted by Etienne View Post
                              The closest cricket catch I've seen was one by Rod Marsh in World Series cricket. Marsh ran a very long way back, misjudged it more than Mays and then recovered with an extraordinary backwards dive. He didn't have to throw the ball back though.
                              There is an extraordinary full sprint over-the-shoulder full length dive grab by Daniel Christian at 5:05 in this compilation. Which I'm not comparing to the Mays one, as I've never seen that.

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                                #16
                                https://www.si.com/mlb/video/2016/03/02-11

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                                  #17
                                  Massively full of shit – me? That's a surprisingly aggressive response.

                                  Yeah, OK, of course I take the point as to quite how incredibly difficult it is to catch a ball coming directly from behind you – that's something familiar from playing cricket and American football in particular. And because of the field placements and the size of cricket grounds, it's something you get more rarely there than a casual observer might think.

                                  The OP wasn't trolling, although I imagine it could have been seen as such – I was hoping for a bit of a discussion about the different skills of baseball and other catching sports, and at least there's been some of that.
                                  Last edited by diggedy derek; 02-10-2018, 13:52.

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                                    #18
                                    Well, I read it as trolling from the get go, which no doubt coloured my responses. That said, if you really think that you would have caught that fly ball, your grasp on reality is not as firm as I had previously thought.

                                    Technique in catching sports is a genuinely interesting topic, and two things about baseball that come immediately to mind are the evolution of gloves



                                    and the variations of approach, from Mays' own basket catch



                                    to the casual-looking, one handed "snap" catches now favoured by many better outfielders.

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                                      #19
                                      Well I don't view myself as a troll.

                                      Part of this is the view the camera provides of baseball on the TV, whereby it's hard to properly appreciate the distances they run away from the camera – an unusual view for a sporting event in a way, but one that gives you a pretty good overview of the whole action of the game, perhaps.

                                      What I find interesting in cricket is that, in theory, you'd think catching would be one discipline which any player could improve through sheer hard work, but catching in the present era doesn't seem to have improved nearly to the same degree as the quality of ground fielding.

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                                        #20
                                        That's very true, and something that is much easier to appreciate live.

                                        In the current age of video driven data analysis, MLB's Statcast can quantify many of the key metrics involved in a catch within seconds.



                                        I agree with your observation on cricket and wonder if the improvement in ground fielding is as much (or more) about overall better physical condition and a change in mentality as it is about pure technique. Those factors have much less impact on the quality of catching per se.

                                        Another interesting comparison between baseball and cricket is the impact of fatigue/boredom on fielding. It is quite rare for a baseball player to be in the field for more than 25 or 30 minutes at a time, and normally he will be out there for a much shorter period.

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                                          #21
                                          That's great, that should have that for cricket.

                                          The big change in cricket fielding recently has been T20 of course, which has made taking leaping catches over the boundary and then throwing the ball back relatively commonplace. And I imagine that's partly because they know they can go full tilt in the field for 90 minutes.

                                          One technical thing which has improved massively with cricket fielding is stopping boundaries – it's much more unusual to see fielders letting the ball through their legs etc. Partly that's through fitness, of course, but especially I think with bowlers, who no longer seem constantly knackered and lackadaisical in the field.

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                                            #22
                                            There are people who working on similar systems for cricket, though the fundamental issue is the cost of the initial installation of the necessary cameras and other equipment, which are quite expensive.

                                            There's also the problem that many cricket grounds lack the fully enclosed and relatively high stands that the system currently relies on.

                                            That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the Aussies implement something, as they have fewer grounds to deal with and more of them that resemble MLB stadia. Once implemented, the system can also be very useful in analysing bowling, batting and field positioning.

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                                              #23
                                              Decent effort at what you might call short midwicket
                                              Last edited by diggedy derek; 04-10-2018, 18:35.

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