CMALL: Six-year-old turns unassisted triple play

Tony Altobelli

Six-year-old Jacob Knapp was minding his own business at shortstop

during a recent Costa Mesa American Little League Machine Pitch Division

game when a line drive came screaming toward him.

The bases were loaded and there were no outs. Not even rattled by the

situation, Knapp snagged the line shot, tagged out the runner heading to

third and alertly ran over and stepped on third base for an unassisted

triple play.

“The really cool thing about all of it was that he knew what he was

doing,” Jacob’s mother, Jennifer, said. “After he stepped on the bag, he

rolled the ball back to the pitcher’s mound and jogged off the field as

cool as can be.”

Just how rare is an unassisted triple play? In the history organized

Major League Baseball, there have been only 12 unassisted triple plays,

the most recent coming May 29, 2000 by Randy Velarde of the Oakland A’s

against the New York Yankees.