And how quickly people forget the comedy defensive stylings of Dmitri Young and Dante Bichette.
Lee does his best, which isn't horrible. Pence infuriates me because he'd be decent if he could only take a beat to see where the ball is fucking going before taking off like a greyhound out of the traps. His speed gives him time, yet he refuses to use it.
Funniest play by a CF I've ever seen was when Underpants was learning how to play CF in Round Rock. There can be some swirling winds inside the park sometimes, so on this night it didn't seem particularly windy, but nonetheless there was enough wind to cause this hilarious play to develop.
This was somewhere in the 8th inning or so, Pence is in CF and the Express are leading by several runs. However, the opposing team has men on base and their best slugger is at bat. He hits what looks like a gapper to left centerfield. Pence hears the crack of the bat, notices the ball is traveling to his right (our left) and he puts his head down and start to run hard... head still down. He is running and running and running, never once looking at the flight of the ball... he head was firmly looking at his feet picking up turf and laying it down. My dog does this sometimes, and once he ran right smack into a tree while chasing a flying HEB sack across the back yard. Back to Pence... I am wanting so much to scream "LOOK UP!!!!", but decide it is best to see how this play turns out.
Well Pence decides he probably has done the fair amount of running to a spot where he thinks the ball will land (as if he has some sort of magical mathematical mind to measure speed, force, distance, wind velocity, and trajectory in his head that no one else has). He slows down to try and find the ball just as the ball is on it's last few feet from landing. The problem is, the ball is landing pretty much where Pence has abandoned several yards away. The bend on the ball with the wind made the ball land somewhere nearer to where Pence was and nowhere near where he now resided. Had he kept his *eye on the ball* and not his feet, he would have noticed that he didn't have to run as hard, maybe take several jogging steps from his position over his right. There was an awkward silence and then some laughter by some in the crowd, me included. It looked like something out of a Buster Keaton movie. The ball sitting there on the ground near centerfield with no CF in sight because he was now over in left centerfield gap looking back where he used to be with the "Aw shit!" look on his face.
