Baseball Prospectus has a daily podcast hosted by Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller called Effectively Wild. They usually fill 30 minutes with some banter and they each bring two topics to the table. On Wednesday, one of the topics, it was an email actually, was something like 'what unlikely thing would you like to see in a baseball game'. I believe they then started about strange ways to walk off a ball game. What Sam came up with next is what sparked this crazy chain reaction. He said that he would love to see a walk off catchers interference, or catchers balk. Then they discussed it some more and went on with the rest of the emails and the show.
Later that evening, I decided to put on the iCubs game on MiLB.TV while I was playing some Madden. I happened to catch iCubs broadcasters Deene Ehlis and Randy Wehofer saying a catcher's interference had occurred, and a rather strange one at that. I wasn't looking at my iPad at the time, but from what Randy was saying it sounded like the call was made because the catcher used his mask (I assume he took it off and it was in his throwing hand) to pick up or stop the ball. Apparently, this action is considered catcher's interference; something I did not know.
This sparked Randy to bring up something he experience in his broadcasting career. He simply said that back when he was working in Burlington there was a game that ended in a walk off catcher's balk. A balk-off! If a catcher leaves the catcher's box to receive a pitch, in this case it was coming out in front of the plate to try and catch the ball early to throw out a baserunner, it is considered a catcher's balk. Which is exactly what happened in Randy's description of this game in Burlington. I promptly relayed this fun-fact to Sam and Ben by a simple tweet. This tweet apparently piqued Sam's interest because not only did he reply to the tweet with a bunch of exclamation marks but they even lead of Thursday's show by talking about it real quick! Which was pretty cool to me.
Having not researched it at the time Randy said it, I decided to do a quick google search to get some solid info on this balk-off. Hoping to find some video was my main goal, but I was unsuccessful. I did, however, find the box score, game log, and game recap from Randy Wehofer himself. The date of the game was May 10, 2007. An instate matchup of the Burlington Bees and the Clinton Lumberkings. The game ended in the bottom of the ninth when Manny Pina balked the winning run home. The walk off catcher's balk Sam Miller had hoped for 6 years in the future.
After finding the box score I sent my findings off to Sam and he promptly favorited the tweet. Then I quickly looked up Manny Pina to see if he had seen any major league time and what he was currently up to. He is currently in the Royals system at their AAA team and got a few cups of coffee in 2010 and 2011. I then considered this fun-fact closed and went on with my business. However...
Every night I check the box scores of the Cub's minor league teams to see how their fared. Tonight, something caught my eye while checking the Iowa Cubs box score. The Iowa Cubs are currently in a series with the Omaha Storm Chasers, the Triple-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals. I look and see their catcher was who else, Manny Pina! This is when I start to get excited and frantically check the box score of yesterdays iCubs game to make sure they were playing the same team. Sure enough, the Iowa Cubs played the Omaha Storm Chasers and Manny Pina was the catcher that game.
Manny Pina was the one who committed the catcher's interference (on August 28, 2013) that sparked Randy Wehofer to inform us about the balk off in Burlington (May 10, 2007). That catcher who committed that balk off SIX YEARS ago was MANNY PINA, then in the Texas Rangers organization. If you haven't caught on by now, THAT'S THE SAME PERSON.
Most of you probably wont care about this major coincidence. But man, it's awesome to me.
Baseball is awesome.
Follow me on Twitter, @UrbyJT!
Links used that contributed to my story!
Episode 275 of Effectively Wild
Iowa Cubs vs. Omaha Storm Chasers, 8/29/2013 Box Score
Manny Pina's Baseball Reference Page
Manny Pina's MiLB.com Page
Burlington Bees vs. Clinton Lumberkings, Wehofer's Game Recap 5/10/2007
Burlington Bees vs. Clinton Lumberkings, 5/10/2007 Box Score
Burlington Bees vs. Clinton Lumberkings, 5/10/2007 pxp
http://t.co/6sdyS7nYTc
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