ESPN Jayson Stark Blog

STRIKE ONE -- TRIFECTA DEPT.

So much bizarre stuff happened in Sunday's New York Mets-Philadelphia Phillies game at Citi Field, cyberspace barely has room to let us recap it all. But let's get to work on it anyway. Here goes:

• The first Mets batter of this game (Angel Pagan) hit an inside-the-park homer. The last (Jeff Francoeur) hit into a triple play. So when was the last time any team did that? Good question. Between SABR's triple-play research and the indispensible retrosheet.org, all we know is that no team has done it in at least the past 74 seasons. Before 1936, who the heck knows? But here's what we do know: If it hasn't happened in about three-quarters of a century, it's definitely hard to do.

• According to ESPN's fabulous Stats & Information department, this was the first National League game to include any kind of inside-the-park homer and any kind of triple play (unassisted or otherwise) since Sept. 25, 1955. Eerily, that was another game in which the Phillies were playing a team in New York. It was a Phillies-Giants game that featured a Ted Kazanski inside-the-parker in the fifth inning and the Giants' Bobby Hofman lining into a ninth-inning triple play. But the triple play didn't just end the game. It also ended both teams' seasons.

• OK, now it's on to Eric Bruntlett, the man who rode his game-ending unassisted triple play into the history books. Before that trifecta, Bruntlett had had five balls hit to him at second base in the ninth inning this season -- and had only turned one of them into an out. That was an Omir Santos pop-up that he gathered in way back on May 2. Between that play and the triple play, Bruntlett had four ground balls hit to him, and they went: Infield single (July 1), E4 (Aug. 12), E4 (Sunday), infield single (Sunday). And then, on the next ball whacked at him, he turned an unassisted triple play. Amazing!