Luis Castillo Becomes the Most Hated and Loved Player in New York on One Play

The game between the New York Yankees and New York Mets on June 13, 2009 featured seven lead changes. But it was the last one that sent the Yankee Stadium crowd into a frenzy.

With the game tied at seven, and two outs in the top of the 8th, Yankees closer Mariano Rivera replaced reliever Phil Coke to pitch to Carlos Beltran. Beltran drew a walk and the next batter, David Wright drove in Beltran with a  double to center. With the Mets now leading 8-7, the next batter, Ryan Church, struck out to end the inning.

The Mets led 8-7 going into the bottom of the ninth, when their closer Francisco Rodriguez took the mound. Rodriguez was in a position to earn his 17th consecutive save of the season when Brett Gardner stepped into the batter's box. Gardner fouled out for the first out of the inning. Derek Jeter singled to center, and stole second while the next batter, Johnny Damon, struck out. With two outs, the Mets decided to set up a force play at first, second and third by intentionally walking Mark Teixeira, who represented the go-ahead run for the Yankees. Then, Alex Rodriguez stepped up to the plate.

Rodriguez took the first four pitches of the at-bat, the first three for balls and the fourth for a strike. Then, he popped a 94-mile per hour 3-1 pitch high shallow right field. Rodriguez slammed his bat down as he lightly jogged to first. Jeter and Teixeira started running on contact, as players are taught to do with two outs since they start playing the game. Francisco Rodriguez pointed to the ball in the air and pumped his fist as second baseman Luis Castillo settled under the ball and prepared to make the last out of the game.

Castillo put up his two hands to call off any other players. He started backpedaling, put his glove up with his left arm, and the ball his glove. It was in the center of his glove, but bounced off his palm and onto the field. He fell to his knees and threw the ball to second, but Jeter had already scored the tying run and Teixeira was in the process of scoring the winning run.

While there was plenty of scoring earlier in the game, Castillo's failure to catch the popup truly was the reason the Yankees were able to win the game. It was both Castillo's fault for not using two hands to secure the ball when it was in his glove, and the correctness of Jeter and Teixeira to run despite a seemingly obvious end to the game.

In 1993, Dennis Eckersley coined the term to describe a game-winning hit as a "walk-off," as away players slowly walk off the field as the home team celebrates. This was truely the case for the Mets, and especially Luis Castillo.

See the play:

Former Major League Shortstop Ryan Theriot Opines About Newly Speculated Dodgers GM

Ryan Theriot, who played for the Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants during his major league career had specific opinions about the speculated general manager to-be of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers will reportedly hire former Oakland Athletics assistant general manager, Farhan Zaidi as their general manager at some point in the next week. In response, Theriot tweeted: 

Wow Dodgers! Nice hire for the GM job. Hahahahahaha.......Good luck with that! #moneyballdoesntwork
— ryan theriot (@rtheriot7) November 5, 2014

Should be a Prerequisite for ALL sports GM jobs that they actually have PLAYED the game. Too much riding on their decisions!
— ryan theriot (@rtheriot7) November 5, 2014

This sent twitter abuzz, and Theriot's name started trending in the United States for a brief period of time. While Theriot's more recent retweets hint that he was being sarcastic on the matter, current New York Yankees pitcher Brandon McCarthy reacted the same way much of twitter did: with a response under the assumption that Theriot was serious in his opinion about the newly named GM. On twitter, McCarthey tweeted: 

@rtheriot7 your two world series rings were brought to you by GMs who didn't play.
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) November 5, 2014

McCarthy is right. Theriot has been a part of two World Series teams, both of which were being run by a GM who has had no  major league baseball experience (John Mozeliak was the Cardinals GM in 2011, and Brian Saben was the Giants GM in 2012). In addition, Jim Hendry, the general manager of the Cubs in 2007 and 2008, also has no major league baseball experience. Those two clubs made it to the National League Division Series. 

That World Series winning teams which Theriot played for had GMs who never played any level of documented baseball is not surprise. Over the past 50 year, just nine teams that won the World Series had then-current GMs who had either major or minor league experience: 

WS Winning Team: GM (Years Active in Major Leagues): 

-1967 St. Louis Cardinals: Stan Musial (1941-1963) 
-1969 New York Mets: Johnny Murphy (1932-1947)
-1979 Pittsburgh Pirates: Pete Peterson (1955-1959)
-1980 Philadelphia Phillies: Phil Owens (1951-1959)
-1981 Los Angeles Dodgers: Al Campanis (1943)
-1982 St. Louis Cardinals: Whitey Herzog (1956-1963)
-1996 New York Yankees: Bob Watson (1966-1984)
-2002 Anaheim Angels: Bill Stoneman (1967-1974)
-2005 Chicago White Sox: Kenny Williams (1986-1991)

One of the GMs played in the minors, but never made it to the majors: Bill Lajoie of the 1984 Detroit Tigers. 

In a response to McCarthy, Theriot tweeted: 

@BMcCarthy32 Wonder how many times Zaidi has put a uniform on.... ANY uniform! Sabean played college ball, Mozeliak was a stud HS player..
— ryan theriot (@rtheriot7) November 5, 2014

McCarthy fired back: 

@rtheriot7 but so what? Literally it matters zero. The time we all spent playing, he accumulated outside knowledge.
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) November 5, 2014

@rtheriot7 combine that with staff who can lend playing perspective, that's dangerous. Baseball players are myopic.
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) November 5, 2014

@rtheriot7 we don't understand market fluctuations, inefficiencies etc. because we didn't study it. Hell, I don't understand hitting.
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) November 5, 2014

@rtheriot7 if I wanted to evaluate hitting or position player D, someone would have to teach me what to look for cause I haven't done it.
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) November 5, 2014

@rtheriot7 baseball is a business, not a pickup game in the park.
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) November 5, 2014

@rtheriot7 I'm ranting but if someone like that didn't listen to people w/ baseball knowledge, then that's dangerous. But that's not his MO
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) November 5, 2014

In sum, the majority of World Series winning GMs over the past 50 years never played a game of major league baseball. Although it may be against Theriot's opinion, baseball GMs who haven't played the game have made decisions that pushed many teams to victory in the past half-centery. Brandon McCarthy is right to defend general managers. In general, these GMs have worked hard in studying many aspects of the game, which, as McCarthy points out, is more often than not more than what regular players do.