Video- Sights & sounds from whatever day it is today- #Padres hold their "Catcher's Olympics" youtu.be/AGE2RJQ3Au8
— Marty Caswell (@MartyCaswell) February 18, 2013
Marty Caswell took some video of the catchers competing in the "Catching Olympics". I, for one, love this type of thing. I wish they'd have this competition at FanFest, I love playing dress up. Even though I've only caught a few innings in a couple adult league games I feel like I would be good at this for some reason, maybe it's my catlike reflexes and overactive imagination.
There appears to be 5 events: Three throws to each of the bases, blocking balls in the dirt and catching pop-ups behind home plate. The throws need to land in a taped off square in a net in front of the bag to count for a point.
For the pop-ups, the catcher buries his face in a helmet until he's given the signal to turn around, look up, then find and catch three balls that are shot in the air from a pitching machine. Nick Hundley, John Baker, Yasmani Grandal, Austin Hedges and Eddy Rodriguez participate while the rest of the players watch.
Maybe I was expecting too much this early in Spring Training but none of these guys look sharp at all. Throws are being lobbed, spiked in the dirt, going wide of the cage and over the cage. Fly balls are bouncing out of gloves and being dropped all over the place.
In the end Nick Hundley John Baker and Yasmani Grandal tie for best sloppiest catcher and must race from baseline to baseline in full catcher's gear, remove the gear and run back in a tiebreaker competition. Hundley Grandal s victorious when he unclips his shin guard first and thus wins the starting job after his 50 game suspension.
UPDATE:
I'm now told it was Grandal who won by beating John Baker in the final. My whole play-by-play is wrong, just watch the video.