Twice for basehit An otherwise standard 8-3 victory by the New York Yankees over the Colorado Rockies did feature one unusual moment on Saturday afternoon. It's what you see pictured above and in the video below. Two different images of the same Troy Tulowitzki(notes) swing, showing two different points of contact on the baseball. A double-hitzki, if you will, for a basehit to left field.
Tulo was jammed a bit on the fourth inning offering from CC Sabathia(notes). Amazingly, or maybe more so luckily, he was able to almost catch that ball with his bat, holding it in place to make contact again with the end up of the bat. The result was a knuckling line drive just over the head of Alex Rodriguez(notes).
Both broadcast teams described the contact as a broken bat single based on the double-crack sound, but a closer inspection on the video you see below shows it hit the bat twice.
Take a closer look for yourself. And listen for the sound.
've seen a double-hit on the backswing when a ball takes a strange bounce. I've seen them happen on bunts. I've even executed a couple on a pool table and the tennis court. But I don't think I've seen or heard anything quite like this one. I'm sure it's happened several times before, probably in games I've watched, but that slow motion visual was the first time I've seen it quite like that. Score one for modern technology.