The Miracle of Derek Lowe’s Home Run
There is a small, good, round miracle to be found in the moving video images that follow. The miracle is not that Derek Lowe has finally hit his first major-league home run. No, the miracle is that the ball that Mr. Lowe smote for his first major-league home run, through a series of adventures and fortuities, managed to beat Mr. Lowe back to the dugout.
Once more, for the deserved emphasis: Derek Lowe hit a ball for a home run, and the ball made it back to the dugout before he did. While I am very much a liar, in this instance I do not lie:
I care not to plumb the relevant databases, but I attest that this has never happened before. On this, I would bet the lives of millions of strangers.
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Something similar happened to Miguel Tejada earlier this year:
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=16357007&topic_id=&c_id=mlb&tcid=vpp_copy_16357007&v=3
How’d the ball get back in so quick? At least in the Tejada video, the explanation is obvious.
Did the fan who caught it a) immediately realize that it was Lowe’s first career homer, b) decide that Lowe would want to keep it, c) act quickly, and d) have an arm like Ichiro?
If you watch the beginning carefully, you’ll just be able to tell that the ball bounces back onto the field. It goes from there.
D-Lowe just ran that slowly. He has used off days from pitching to perfect a slow home rum trot. I think I detected one flap down.
Ha, “home rum trot.” I don’t know if you meant to write that, but it’s great, regardless.
Coincidentally, Lowe hit the HR off of John Lannan, who just this year hit his own first career HR.
Video link sends me to mlb site. Did they get rid of their embeddable videos?
“Home run Derek Lowe… WooHoo” Hahah Love it.
He should have picked it up before entering the dugout and BLOWN OUR MINDS
For what it’s worth, Tim Hudson is still rounding the bases from his home run earlier this year. :D
bartolo colon hit a homer once, but he got tired halfway through and had to settle for a double
In Lowe’s defense, he had to run farther than the ball had to travel.
Nope. HitTracker estimates the ball went 367′ which means it would have traveled about 734′ including it’s return trip (ignoring that it went back to the dugout rather than home plate). Mr. Lowe needed only run the 360′ around the bases, plus the 20 or so feet to the dugout. So, in fact, the ball traveled about twice as far as Lowe did.
Baseball 1, Lowe 0
At 25 seconds into the video on the left-hand side you can see Ryan Zimmerman throwing the ball toward the Braves’ dugout. Not exactly a miracle.
he’s an angel!
So is that what kids growing up think an announcer is for? To root for the team and then say “woohoo” right during the call? Another (minor) reason our society is fucked.
I agree with your sentiments. All hail Joe Buck!
I am Derek Lowe, the MLB pitcher. I believe I am the first MLB player to hit a home run while possessing a Ph.D. (Ph.D Organic Chemistry, Duke University)