No. 8: The squeeze play contains the meaning of life

In memory of James "Jim" D. Millspaugh, my uncle.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

In Game 3 of the 2020 World Series, the Dodgers’ nine-hitter Austin Barnes came to the plate in the top of the fourth with one out. He squared up, then pushed a bunt to Rays first baseman Ji-man Choi. The runner on first broke for second on contact. The runner on third sprinted home. Choi’s only play was forcing Barnes out at first, which he did. The Dodgers extended their lead to 4-0, and eventually took the game and the series.

Last week, the Dodgers’ nine-hitter Austin Barnes came to the plate in the top of the second with one out. He squared up, then pushed a bunt to Padres first baseman Ji-man Choi. The runner on first broke for second on contact. The runner on third sprinted home. Choi’s only play was forcing Barnes out at first, which he did not, as he tried a desperate heave to the catcher to prevent the run from scoring. It didn’t work. The Dodgers extended their lead to 3-0, and eventually took the game and the Padres’ soul.

The at-bats, two-and-a-half years apart, are eerily similar, but a more sensible fan than me would dismiss any mysticism. As the Dodgers’ backup catcher, Barnes always bats at the bottom of the order when he starts, and Choi is a journeyman. His involvement in both situations is coincidental. And runners on first and third with one out is the classic scenario for the so-called “squeeze.” On the other hand, the universe may very well have conspired to have me watch the bunts in real-time so that I can overthink the supposed metaphysical elements of an increasingly rare baseball play.

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Like calculus—the mathematical study of change—the squeeze play is a simple concept: it’s when a batter attempts to drive in a runner on third base by bunting. And like calculus, the squeeze is difficult to explain or solve:

• Who: In addition to the runner on third, there’s often a man on first, since the squeeze rules out a ground ball double play. Bunting responsibilities are usually entrusted to the bottom third of a team’s batting order.

• What: There are two flavors of the play: the safety squeeze, and the suicide squeeze. In the former, the runner on third breaks for home only after ensuring the ball was hit on the ground. In the latter, the runner on third breaks for home as the pitcher is in his windup. (I very much do not want to be the person sprinting to where the ball, bat, and three other humans converge with no idea if any or all of those things will move out of my way.)

• When: The squeeze usually occurs with one out because there are a lot of ways to score a run from third with zero outs. Even a ground ball double play should work, begrudgingly. And trying to squeeze home a run with two outs is nonsensical. The defense just needs to field the ball and step on first to end the inning.

• Where: A baseball field.

• Why: Granted a good bunt, the squeeze is virtually unstoppable.

In the typical defensive response to a squeeze play, both corner infielders “crash” toward home to field the ball, while the second baseman covers the vacated first base and the shortstop tracks the runner on first, since there is now an undefended bag. (The pitcher usually takes a couple perfunctory steps toward the bunted ball, then spectates.) The play at the plate is not a force out, so the responsible action is to get the out at first and humbly accept the run against you. That decision needs to be made in nanoseconds; Choi chose correctly in 2020 and wrongly in 2023. Sometimes, a defense doesn’t get to make that decision, like when a sturdy bunt pierces a gap between the pitcher and the crashing infielders, making all involved look like security guards chasing after a lithe streaker. During the 2020 World Series broadcast, John Smoltz summarized the squeeze play thusly: “You can’t defend it.” 

It’s also a gorgeous play, one with the most moving parts in baseball—put flywheels around the players and they could power a jet engine—and one that lays bare the underlying science of the game. My high school wrestling coach would try to explain the details of a move, but then he’d shrug and conclude with, “It’s all physics and fulcrums.” The squeeze play is indeed all physics and fulcrums. It also returns its participants back to their youth. There’s something innocent about one person gently tapping a ball to another on purpose and that person flipping the ball to an expectant teammate. 

Why don’t we see the squeeze play more often, then? Because no one can bunt anymore because no one bunts anymore. Quants crunched the numbers in the 2000s and realized that bunting came at the expense of runs. Coincidentally or not, the Oakland Athletics lead the league in sacrifice bunts per game this year and may end the season as the worst team in history (although, their meager 0.21 per-game tally would have offended a team’s manager in the 1940s).

When watching a game together, my father asks me after every out why didn’t the batter lay down a bunt, and his citing Mickey Mantle’s career bunt hit statistics has become a running Dad joke. I had always rolled my eyes at him. “Don’t give away outs” had become doctrine to younger generations. The gravest violation was the bunt. I’ve softened my stance over the years, to the point where I complained last week to friends about Phillies manager Rob Thomson’s disdain for the squeeze play. With one out and runners on the corners in the fourth inning of a tied ball game, the Phillies’ nine-hole hitter, fresh from the minor leagues, neither attempted a bunt nor drove in a run in his at-bat.

I guess the logic and grace of Barnes’ World Series squeeze has stayed with me, its impact hidden like a recessive gene until I recently rewatched Ken Burns’ Baseball. In “Shadow Ball,” the series’ fifth episode, then-New York governor Mario Cuomo provided words about life, baseball, and the bunt that are worth reproducing in their entirety:

The idea of community, this idea of coming together, we’re still not good at that in this country. We talk about it a lot in moments of crisis, we’re magnificent at it. The depression, Franklin Roosevelt, lifting himself from his wheelchair, lift this nation from its knees. At those moments, we understand community, helping one another. Baseball, you do that all the time. You can’t win it alone. You can be the best pitcher in baseball, but somebody has to get you a run to win the game. It is a community activity. You need all nine people helping one another. I love bunt plays. I love the idea of the bunt. I love the idea of the sacrifice, even the word is good. Giving yourself up for the good of the whole, that’s Jeremiah. That’s thousands of years of wisdom. You find your own good in the good of the whole. You find your own individual fulfillment in the success of the community. [The] Bible tried to do that, and didn’t teach you. Baseball did.

All things being equal, it’s inarguable that bunting is inefficient and suboptimal, but on the ball field, as in life, all things are not equal. There are nerves, tendencies, mistakes, triumphs, accidents, emotions, relationships, power dynamics, and plain luck—for each of his squeeze plays, Austin Barnes was offered fastballs in the strike zone, the easiest pitch to bunt. How do we quantify a backup catcher batting .128 this year being able to contribute in this way? More broadly, how do we quantify the value of sacrifice? Of finding your own good in the good of the whole? 

Just before Barnes’ squeeze play last week against the Padres, I was told my uncle Jim had died. My eyes were on the TV, but my mind careened between shock and memories. There was the time down the Jersey shore where, over drinks and late into the night, he literally opened the books to his businesses, offering to launch my career in real estate development. There were also the countless political debates, him on the right and me on the left, that would inform my actual career path more than either of us knew at the time. My final conversation with him was at Christmas dinner, for which he proudly cooked prime rib every year. I can’t recall the context, but I remember him telling me how much he loves his wife and daughters, my aunt and cousins. He would do anything for them, he said. He would do anything to make them happy. I am certain that that love, that willingness to sacrifice, meant far more to him than any number in his pro formas.