Lonnie Smith Stops at Third

October 27, 1991, the Metrodome, Game 7 of the World Series. Jack Morris and John Smoltz had matched zeros into the eighth. Lonnie Smith led off with a single. Terry Pendleton drove the ball into the left-center gap, the kind of hit the Atlanta dugout greeted as a run. Smith was running on the pitch. Near second he slowed.

Chuck Knoblauch and Greg Gagne mimed the turn of a double play, as if the ball were on the infield. It was not. It was on the warning track. Smith said later that he had not picked the ball up and that the decoy fooled him. By the time he saw it, third was all he could reach. Ron Gant grounded out. David Justice walked. Sid Bream grounded into a 3-2-3 double play, Kent Hrbek to Brian Harper to Hrbek. The inning died with the run on third.

Morris finished ten shutout innings. In the bottom of the tenth Dan Gladden doubled, Knoblauch sacrificed, the Twins walked Kirby Puckett and Hrbek intentionally, and the injured Gene Larkin singled home the winner on the first pitch he saw from Alejandro Peña. Minnesota won, 1–0. Smith called it his mistake. The series is remembered as one of the best ever played. His hesitation is the reason it went to the tenth at all.