The Cincinnati Reds have been through a brutal stretch of baseball. Their bullpen is a constant issue, and they just got swept in a four-game home and away series by their cross-state rivals the Cleveland Indians. But that kind of baseball doesn’t get a player like Brandon Phillips down. On Thursday night, the Reds second baseman decided to make baseball fun again in his own way.
In the top of the sixth inning, Juan Uribe was on second base with two outs and Rajai Davis batting. After Davis took an inside pitch from Reds reliever Keyvius Sampson (amazing baseball name), Phillips ran over to Uribe and tagged him with his glove closed, pretending he had the ball. Of course, he didn’t have the ball, but Uribe was facing out to left field and had his back turned to Phillips.
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Uribe was thoroughly fooled and confused. He stared at Phillips for a few long seconds, trying to figure out just what had happened and how he’d managed to be tagged out at all. When he realized that Phillips didn’t have the ball, and that the whole thing was a joke, he put his hand over his heart and took a few deep breaths.
If he had been a cartoon character at that moment, you would have seen his heart literally pounding out of his chest and huge drips of sweat falling off of him. But he loved the joke, and laughed and smiled that great Juan Uribe smile.
It was just a little moment in a game and a series that the Reds (and their fans) would probably rather forget. But Brandon Phillips is going to have fun playing baseball no matter what.
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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher
- Sports & Recreation
- Baseball
- Brandon Phillips
- Juan Uribe
- Cincinnati Reds
- Cleveland Indians
