“It was going to take a perfect throw to get me. And it was a perfect throw.”
--Terrence Long, the A's outfielder who ran from first to third on a single to Mariners' right fielder Ichiro Suzuki, on April 11, 2001.

“I didn’t have to move my glove.”
--David Bell, the Mariners third baseman, who caught the throw from Ichiro.

“Terrence was a pretty fast runner, but Ichiro just came up with a hose. It was his ‘Here I am!’ moment as an outfielder.”
--Eric Chavez, the A's third baseman, and now Ichiro's teammate on the New York Yankees, watching from the dugout.

“The ball was hit right to me. Why did he run when I was going to throw him out?”
--Ichiro Suzuki, right fielder.

The quotes are all from Benjamin Hoffman's piece in today's New York Times, ”A Throw that Made a Phenomenon: Rookie Ichiro Suzuki's perfect peg in 2001 made Baseball take notice.“

I remember the throw (or The Throw) well. It's one of the most stunning I've seen. Not because of the distance—I've seen longer throws—but because there was almost no arc to it. It was a laser beam that seemed to defy gravity. It never had height; it just had sizzle.

You can see a clip of the throw on MLB.com. They show it a couple of times. Stick around for the last and best angle, the one that causes one announcer to say, ”Wow,“ and color announcer Dave Valle to say, ”...a strike down the middle, like David Bell was a catcher.“

”Why did he run when I was going to throw him out?”

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