Missing a triple play

In all my years of playing and attending baseball games, I have never witnessed a triple play.  In the history of major league baseball there have been less than 700 of these plays.  They are rare, to say the very least.  It would be fantastic to see one.  Definitely something someone who loves baseball can get excited about.

And on March 2, 2013, I missed seeing one in person because of two statistical anomalies.  Not one, two.  On the same day, at the same meal, right before a definite statistical anomaly, the triple play, was about to occur.

Let me set the scene.  Saturday was a beautiful day.  I arrived at Stanford University’s campus about 9am to watch their football team practice.  I met my friend John there to kick back and take in a day of sport.  We planned the day well – football practice, pop into Palo Alto for lunch, and wrap up with a baseball game in the afternoon.  There was a veritable sporgy taking place on campus that day with a track meet, water polo match, tennis match, men’s volleyball match, diving competition – you name it and we could have taken it in.  And the day was gorgeous – especially for a Michigander in March.

Football practice was wrapping up so we jumped in my car to head over to downtown Palo Alto.  I had gone to a sports bar in 2011 with my Oxford classmates that I figured would be perfect to pop into for lunch that day.

Upon arriving, I ordered, shockingly, a Diet Coke and John ordered a water.  There were 4 tables with people at them, one of which had been occupied for much of the morning as the group was Marquette fans watching the Marquette basketball game.

So, for the first statistical anomaly, the waitress asks me for my credit card to start a tab.  We were not at the bar.  We did not have alcoholic beverages.  We had not even ordered food.  However, this woman was fearful of a dine and dash over a DC and water.  I acted surprised but gave her the card.  It was not like I didn’t want to pay.

John and I enjoyed some food while watching college basketball.  We had it timed so we would make it back just in time for the baseball game at 1pm.  When we were close to finished with our sandwiches, I asked the waitress to close us out.

She proceeded to close out the tab and bring the bill to me – with the wrong credit card.  See, here is where asking for the card at the beginning bit this woman in the rear.  She didn’t have card control.  In informed her of the error and she took the card and bill back.  She began again.  And brought me the bill again.  And gave me another wrong card.  At this point I told her I was a baseball player at heart and if she got it wrong three times, we were not paying, just to try and add humor.

In all my years of eating out I had never 1) been asked to start a tab at table or 2) had the WRONG card brought back to me – and not just once, but twice!

The delays continued and she finally got it right.  Unfortunately, our perfectly timed day was thrown off.

We got back to the baseball field, bought our tickets, walked into the stadium and arrived just in time to hear a very loud cheer.

Stanford had ended the bottom of the first inning by getting Texas out with a triple play.  And all we could do was sit down and ask the gents in front of us, “What happened?”