Lots of great things were said about Devon White`s catch. The greatest of these came out of Dave Winfield.
”That was the best catch in World Series history,” Winfield said Tuesday night. ”You don`t have to go to the black-and-white film anymore.”
Whether it was better than Willie Mays` over-the-shoulder catch in the 1954 Series-or The Best Catch of Your Choice-doesn`t matter.
It was a great line.
”I thought that was great,” White said before Wednesday`s game-of the quote, not the catch.
If you missed it-the catch, not the quote-it was a leaping grab of a David Justice flyball made while leaping into the center-field padding.
The catch`s lifespan as the ”best ever” would have gained a decade or two if Bob Davidson, the second-base umpire, hadn`t blown the triple-play call in the fourth inning of Game 3.
Davidson, incidentally, came out with a confession of sorts Wednesday.
”When I first called the play,” the umpire said, ”I thought I was 100 percent right. It was right there, right in front of me.
”Then I saw the replays and the picture. . . . ”
(He couldn`t have missed the picture. Kelly Gruber tagging Deion Sanders` heel, in plenty of time and in plenty of color, covered most of Page 1 of Wednesday`s Toronto Sun.)
”. . . and I thought I probably missed the play. But that`s baseball.”
Well . . . in any event, the catch, correctly, was ruled a catch.
How great was it, really? The one player who seemed to have it in perspective Wednesday was White, who was asked to rank this one among his others.
”Definitely,” he said, ”in the Top 10.”
Which may detract from its singularity, but not from its beauty. This is a man who makes lots of catches like these.
”He`s the best,” said teammate Jack Morris, who has had such notables as Gary Pettis and Kirby Puckett backing him up. ”He`s what I consider an elegant, graceful center-fielder.”
The catch didn`t shock Candy Maldonado at all.
”I knew when he went back, he had a chance,” said Maldonado, who was in left field and, therefore, had a pretty good vantage point. ”That`s why he`s a Gold Glover. I know what he can do.”
So does Justice, who hit the thing. That didn`t keep him from being a little surprised.
”When I hit it, I thought it had a chance to go out (of the park),”
Justice said Wednesday. ”But I lost the flight of the ball. When I heard the crowd`s reaction, I knew he`d caught it.”
The crowd`s reaction was something. The fact that a triple play didn`t happen-a truly once-in-a-lifetime event in a World Series-mattered not at all, even though Gruber`s in-time tag, which almost tripped Sanders, was visible from even the high seats.
White might have thought it was routine, but in that view he was virtually alone.
”What went through my mind and gave me chills was the fans,” White said. ”They really got me pumped up.
”I`m not a very emotional person, but I got into it.”
What he wouldn`t get into on the day after was the debate on whether he had replaced the catch by Mays that has become known, simply, as The Catch.
”I really would never think of comparing myself to Willie Mays,” White said. ”It`s just part of my game.
”It was a very important play in the game, but I would never think of comparing it to Willie Mays` catch. Or Ron Swoboda`s (for the 1969 Mets).”
For sure, it`s up there, and it was a thrill for all lucky enough to see it as it happened.
But, oh, what it could have been.
