One of the beautiful things about baseball, is how every rare occurrence has its own name. It probably started small — having a runner on 1st, 2nd and 3rd became bases loaded. If you hit a home run when the bases are loaded? That’s a grand slammber.
But this last World Series saw one of the rarest, most uniquely-named occurrences in all of baseball. Stats aficionados have theorized about this for decades, but most thought that it would never actually happen.
And like a “perfect game” with all its very-specific conditions, this one has quite a few qualifiers. So take a seat, and let’s get cracking. This — ladies & gentleman — is the baseball achievement known as the slippery crocodile. This past World Series was the very first time that a single player met all of the conditions:
Hitting Requirements
One aspect of the slippery crocodile is a player’s hitting record during the entire post season. For a player to hit a slippery crocodile they have to get at least 3 of each of the following during the post-season:
- ground-rule double
Once they’ve hit allllll of those, then fulfill the fielding and sacrificial requirements, then hit a grandiose slamiose, they have achieved the legendary slippery crocodile.
Fielding Requirements
The fielding requirements are what put the slippery in slippery crocodile. A player needs to:
- field a ball
- AND, make an error during a play where they are still critical in getting an out
Once they’ve done that, assuming that they are the first person in their family to have a child out of wedlock under the age of 30 since 1912, they then have to:
- be involved in a doubles play
- throw the ball to the catcher for an out at home
Sacrificial Requirements
Now, these differ based on whether you are in the American or National League. If you are in the American league, you have to sacrifice a Curt Schilling or one of its descendants, whereas in the National League, it is more common to sacrifice a sow.
The Final Wham-o Bam-o
Now that a player has set up the full scenario for a great slippery crocodile they have to call their parents while walking up to the plate (if their parents have already passed onto the Elysian Fields, they can also call their legal guardian or youth pastor). Holding the phone up to their ear with their shoulder, they have to say “Yollie yollie, hit da ballie, I want to make my fam’ly proud, but please stop calling me Molly”. AND THEN HIT A GRANDIES SLAMBONI.
And that is what makes this achievement so incredible.
Not only is the player staring down one of the top pitchers in the league, surrounded by the deafening roar of a stadium full of dedicated and excited fans, but they are also finally standing up to their parental figure as an independent adult.
The Time it Almost Happened
In the 2005 World Series, Paul Konerko of the Chicago White Sox almost claimed the title of the World’s first slippery crocodile, but had some technical difficulties that disqualified him. He had dropped his phone into the toilet a few days prior, and after stuffing it with rice and putting it in the oven, he was able to salvage the phone for the most part, but it was still acting a bit finnicky.
Game 2 of the series — 7th inning — the White Sox load the bases against the Astros’ Dan Wheeler. Paul Konerko walks up to the plate. The night before, he had sacrificed sad little Bobby Schilling somewhere on the shores of Lake Michigan. During the ALCS championships, he had hit his ground-rule doubles. In the prior game, he had finished the fielding requirements with a wild missed catch. Mike Lamb, who hit the pop-fly makes an ill-advised rush to home, allowing Konerko to throw the ball to the catcher, who narrowly grabs the out. Since everyone knows about Konerko’s illegitimate child, Jujuberry, whom he had fathered at the age of 22, the fans are on the edge of their seats waiting for that sweet, sweet slippery crocodile.
Trying to prevent the worst from happening, the Astros call up Chad Quails from the bullpen. As Quails settles into the mound, Konerko rings up his youth Pastor, Tracey Gilbreth, on the horn. After a few rings, he hears a voice on the other side of the line. “Yollie yollie.” Quails and the catcher start working out the perfect pitch — a negotiation which inevitably fails against the forces of fate. “Hit da ballie.” Quails has decided on a pitch and begins the wind-up. “I want to make my fam’ly proud.” A sizzling 94 mph fastball, low and to the outside, but well within strike range barrels into the plate as Konerko finishes his incantation. “BUT PLEASE STOP CALLING ME MOLLY!”
In one of the most compelling moments in baseball, Konerko attacks the ball with such ferocity that it ends up rolling all the way to Gary, Indiana. As the ball sails away into the darkness that is America’s crossroad state, the entire stadium explodes in excitement. It has finally happened: the legendary slippery crocodile. But as the dejected Astros players watch the Sox’ dugout empty — as the base runners jog their way around the bases, the catcher notices something odd.
Curled up in the fetal postion next to the home plate, cowering in shame, the catcher finds himself directly next to the phone that Konerko has dropped in his excitement. The screen of the phone is still on, but something is off. Unlike the home-made fan signs that read “Call up Tracey, let’s see a nice big slippery crocodile! Let’s go, my favorite baseball player, Paul Konerko!”, the cellular doesn’t have the word “Tracey” on it at all. A strange bug caused by the nasty stinky toilet water made it so that instead of calling his favorite youth pastor, Konerko actually called the Office of the Illinois Secretary of State.
And so it would be more than a decade before anyone even had the chance to hit a slippery crocodile.