There is no Chicago Cubs baseball today, so may these three ridiculous catches tide you over.
When the ball is coming right at you, here’s hoping you’ve done a lot of agility drills, yoga, and vitamin-intake:
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I actually don’t really kid there. Jake Arrieta is a hell of an athlete, and, aside from the in-born ball recognition, his athleticism allowed him to make that plate – and save himself.
By far my favorite catch of the weekend came on Saturday when Addison Russell may have saved the day:
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That is simply a stupid good catch. The tracking, the body control, the timing, and then the athleticism to come down and hang onto the ball. Throw in the game situation there, and the catch becomes all the more impressive. I don’t think this is quite as good as the diving play Russell made on Billy Hamilton, but only because that play on Hamilton should have been impossible. This was possible, just hella difficult.
The Pirates were doing it to the Cubs all over the outfield yesterday, and maybe it was payback for Dexter Fowler’s catch in the first:
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The dive wasn’t the most graceful thing – you could rightly describe it as something closer to a belly flop – but Fowler tracked that ball and timed himself very well. It hung up just long enough to be caught, and Fowler did a great job managing and extending his arm to make the catch.
Your favorite from the trio? The most objectively impressive?