The Play of the Year

All across Major League Baseball, blogs and team sites alike have been running year-in-review type posts.  In fact, I did some of that myself over at the Detroit Tigers Den, which I co-write with Austin Drake.  Here at Tigers Tracks, I have mostly stayed away from that temptation.  Sure, they are easy stories, and I have been slacking in my posts here a bit, but it feels like I would be writing the same story you have already read in 10 different places.

That said, a couple weeks back, the Official site ran a poll asking reader opinions on the play of the year.  There were some great memories listed there, Ryan Raburn’s walk-off homer against the Cubs earned my vote.  Justin Verlander’s 11 strikeout performance in Cleveland in May, the game he won 1-0 over Cliff Lee, was also on the list.  The most notable exception was the biggest play of that Verlander game was easily also the biggest play of the year; Curtis Granderson’s game saving catch to rob Grady Sizemore of a walk-off homer.

Now I know that Granderson is no longer a member of the Tigers, but c’mon.  Last I checked, Granderson was actually playing for the Tigers last season, whether or not he’s a Yankee now.  Granderson’s omission from that list can only be an attempt to make the fans forget that a favorite was traded away.  I doubt it worked.

Granderson’s catch was not only the play of the year for Detroit, hands down, it was probably one of the two or three best plays in all of baseball last season.  The only one I can easily recall being a bigger play was Dewayne Wise’s catch to save Mark Buerhle’s perfect game.  A quick check of whitesox.com shows no poll asking about the ChiSox play of the year.  Maybe they knew the answer was obvious.

Bless You Boys attempted to rectify the situation by adding their own poll and included Grandy’s grab, along with Aubrey Huff’s game-tying homer against Toronto.  Granderson won that poll in a landslide.

So, one more time because it never, ever gets old, here’s the play of the year.  Enjoy.