Inside the park homers aren’t exceedingly rare. They happen. But, as I’ve said before, they’re often kind of anti-climactic. A fielder misplays the ball, falls down or, worse, gets hurt, the ball rolls around forever and the batter makes it home standing up. A lot of inside the park homers would be called four-base errors if I was in charge of things and fielders were actually penalized for totally missing balls they should have handled. I think triples are often more exciting.
But such was not the case with Chase Utley’s inside-the-parker last night. Yes, there was a bad carom off the wall, but the fielders recovered as quickly as they could, Utley hauled ass and there was a close play at the plate. Exciting stuff.
My favorite part wasn’t the play at the plate, though. It was the goofy look on Utley’s face as he rounded third and headed for home. I think I saw his tongue sticking out like someone was taunting him with delicious, delicious pie.
