Greatest play in baseball by a great American

On April 29, 2007, Colorado Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki made the baseball history books in a game against the Atlanta Braves.

In the top of the seventh inning, with no outs, a tied score and runners on first and second, Atlanta’s Chipper Jones was at bat with a full count. Chipper hit a line drive at Tulowitzki, who caught the ball in flight, stepped on second before Kelly Johnson could run back to tag up, and tagged Edgar Renteria as he ran from first to second, all for an unassisted triple play.

But that was not the greatest play in baseball.

Before that day there were 665 triple plays in Major League Baseball since 1876, 13 of those unassisted, but none of them stands as the greatest play in baseball.

The greatest play in baseball is credited to Rick Monday in Dodger Stadium on April 25, 1976, in a game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs. Monday was playing center field for the Cubs.

In the fourth inning the Dodgers were at bat with two outs, the count was one ball, no strikes.

All of a sudden, Monday saw two men run onto the field from the left field corner cradling something in their arms. They ran to shallow left center, and something didn’t seem right to him.

He looked closer to see they were dousing an American flag in lighter fluid and trying to light a match to burn it. Monday sprinted toward them, grabbed the flag away from them and kept on running while he felt the flag to see if it was ignited. They had failed to light the flag afire but Monday did get his hands soaked in lighter fluid.

While Monday was sprinting toward the dugouts, Dodger Manager Tommy LaSorda passed him, running to confront the protesters while cussing a blue streak with murder in his eyes. Fortunately the security team reached the protesters before LaSorda. Monday handed the flag off to Doug Rau, the Dodgers’ left-handed pitcher.

As security people reached the protesters to haul them off the field, the crowd buzzed as spectators talked to each other about what had just happened. Amidst the semi-quiet, somewhere in the stands someone started to sing. One section after another joined in and in just a moment the entire stadium was singing “God Bless America.”

Play resumed, and when Rick Monday came up to bat in the next half-inning, the crowd gave him a standing ovation while the big message board behind the left-field bleachers in the stadium flashed the message, “Rick Monday — you made a great play!”

Later in 1976, the rescued flag was presented to Rick Monday in a ceremony at Wrigley Field by Dodgers executive Al Campanis. Monday hung the flag in his home in Vero Beach, Fla., until a few years ago, when the house was damaged by a hurricane. Now the flag rests safely in a safety deposit box. He has been offered a million dollars for the flag, but says it isn’t for sale at any price.

Monday never tires of being asked about grabbing the flag to keep it from being burned. He says he doesn’t remember whether his team won or lost the game that day, but he still gets goose bumps when he recalls the fans singing from the stands.

Monday is often asked how he feels about being remembered for the flag incident when he accomplished other notable things in his 19 years in professional baseball. He says he couldn’t be more proud and, “If you’re going to burn the flag, don’t do it around me. I’ve been to too many veterans’ hospitals and seen too many broken bodies of guys who tried to protect it.”

I am one of those guys who went to war and came home on a stretcher, spent a lot of time in hospitals. Personally, I think a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning is a bad idea loaded with unintended consequences, and yet I am damn proud of Rick Monday. Sound contradictory? I don’t think so.

Those creeps had every right to their despicable act of striking a match to the flag even if they had no right to be on the field. While they had the right to be stupid, Monday had the right to stop them.

What is the upside to an anti-flag burning amendment, I wonder? Creeps would still try to burn the flag. Here in Peachtree City we might even run afoul of new rules by decorating our golf carts with a hundred versions of flags on 4th of July and casually discarding those decorations when we are done. Besides, you can’t legislate good taste, common sense or patriotism. You can’t effectively make loyalty compulsory in a free country.

I have veteran friends on both sides of this issue.

Jim Warner was a Marine jet pilot in the Vietnam War, shot down and held and tortured as a POW for five years and five months. As a White House aide to President Reagan, Jim received the 1990 H.L. Mencken Award for an editorial in which he opposed a flag burning amendment.

Another friend, Adrian Cronauer, was an Air Force Armed Forces Radio disc jockey in Saigon during the war, played by Robin Williams in the movie “Good Morning, Vietnam!” Adrian says his character was real but the antics in the movie are all fictional comedy. He is a frequent speaker on various issues of patriotism and serving our country, and he is an ardent and active promoter of the flag burning amendment.

We are friends with mutual respect despite our differing views, an exercise of the individual freedom the men and women in our armed forces risk their lives to protect.

There is one thing we three would surely agree on: Rick Monday made the greatest play ever in baseball.

Absolutely awesome story

Submitted by Richard Hobbs on Mon, 06/18/2007 - 7:10pm.

Thanks for sharing that with us. I wish I could find that on YouTube, certainly its available somewhere.

As to the amendment to ban burning of the American flag, I have mixed emotions. I believe that part of what makes America great is the right that we have to freedom of speech and burning the flag is one of those undeniable speeches.

Then again, punching the little pricks out who are burning the flag is another form of freedom of expression.

As you indicated about the POW, I read a long time ago, that these POW's were shown the flags being burned while they were in Hanoi Hilton. Instead of torture, the sights encouraged them in knowing that in America we have those freedoms. That opinion changed my mind on the subject. Of course, giving aid and comfort to the enemy as several U.S. Senators have recently, or as one former X-Pres repeatedly does, is a close call. But I'd bet on the side of a long prison sentence.

Thanks again for sharing. I didn't know about the Rick Monday event nor that we had an unassisted triple play against us this year. I was, however, at the game in which three Braves pitched a no hitter, thanks to the liberal score keeper interpretation of a Terry Pendleton error.

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