Yoenis Cespedes took third base by knocking Adam Wainwright's glove off

There’s a whole thing in baseball about the frequency with which you see things you’ve never seen before, and the reason it’s a whole thing is the actual frequency with which you see things you’ve never seen before. Take, for example, this play from Thursday’s night’s Mets-Cardinals game:

On James Loney’s bloop single to left field, Mets baserunner Yoenis Cespedes tried to take third base. Outfielder Brandon Moss’ throw clearly beat Cespedes to the bag, and Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright was there to field it and place the tag.

But when Cespedes popped up from his slide, he stepped on Wainwright’s glove and removed it from the pitcher’s hand. Have you ever seen that before? I haven’t, and I’ve seen a whole lot of baseball. Wainwright, for his part, also looked like he has never seen it before.

Cespedes was initially ruled safe, and a replay review confirmed the call. The play clearly was unintentional, but man, would that be a neat baserunning strategy to master.