It’s not the big leagues, but Manny Ramirez is back in professional baseball, this time as a player/coach for the Triple-A Iowa Cubs. On Monday, in his second game in the Pacific Coast League, Manny went yard. Unlike his travels in Taiwan, however, Rodriguez was a bit more professional rounding the bases — his trot clocked in at roughly 24 seconds. See it below:
This one is going down as one of the best tater trots I’ve seen. The moment was special, of course: down by three with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, Rajai Davis takes Oakland closer Sean Doolittle deep to left field. As rare as a walkoff grand slam might be, the circumstance where the grand slam is required for the walkoff (ie, when the team is down by three runs) is much more rare. Davis coming through here is what whiffle ball dreams are made of.
But what makes the trot special is how Davis reacts going around the bases. He doesn’t just scream and yell and smile. He doesn’t just pump his fist or point at his teammates. No, Davis hops and leaps and hugs his coaches as he rounds the bases. In fact, after the ball clears the fence, Davis hops onto first base and turns around to hug first base coach Omar Vizquel. That move brought Davis perilously close to stopping on the basepaths and invalidating the trot time.
In the end, Davis clocked in with a full 26.62 second trot, but there’s a lot more to it than that. With the excitement Davis showed rounding the bases, I’m not sure you can have more fun on a tater trot than he did last night. Nice work.
Slowest Trot: Rajai Davis, Detroit Tigers – 26.62 seconds [video]
Washington’s Adam LaRoche trailed Davis’ walkoff grand slam for the next slowest trot of the night at 24.93 seconds.
Quickest Trot: Curtis Granderson, New York Mets – 18.12 seconds [video]
Kevin Kiermaier hit another home run for the Rays, but he clocked in at a mere pedestrian 19.63 seconds. Thankfully, Curtis Granderson still hasn’t lost a beat.
All of Today's Trots Rajai Davis........26.62 Steve Pearce #2....21.77 Adam LaRoche.......24.93 Nate Schierholtz...21.5 Mike Zunino........24.7 J.J. Hardy.........21.35 Miguel Cabrera.....24.66 Marwin Gonzalez....21.27 George Springer....24.24 Brad Miller........20.9 Michael Saunders...23.99 Matt Joyce.........20.75 Robinson Cano......23.83 Adam Jones.........20.38 Brian Roberts......22.93* Kevin Kiermaier....19.63 Salvador Perez.....22.52 Curtis Granderson..18.12 Steve Pearce #1....22.08
Click here for the ongoing 2014 Tater Trot Tracker Leaderboard. You can also follow @TaterTrotTrkr on Twitter for more up-to-the-minute trot times.
