Mike Trout’s speed was the thing of legends while he was in the minor leagues. We would only hear tales about him blazing along the basepaths, like the time he scored from first base on a routine single. But in his abbreviated time in the majors, Trout had yet to really put his wheels on full display, until last night when he laid down a bunt and ran to first in 3.53 seconds.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: It seems MLB disabled embedding after this post was published, here is a link to the video clip)
For those of you scoring at home, that’s incredibly fast. To put it in perspective, the standard for home-to-first times is Mickey Mantle’s alleged 3.5 second mark. It is easy to see now why Trout is so often compared to the Mick. From a more modern perspective, current minor league speed phenom Billy Hamilton is clocked at “only” 3.83 seconds from the right-handed batter’s box to first base. Still, I don’t think that tells the whole story. Here is an incomplete list of things that are done in approximately 3.53 seconds:
- Go from zero to sixty in a 2008 Ferrari F430 Scuderi
- Have a sound wave travel three-quarters of a mile
- Shotgun an entire can of beer, if you’re really good at it
- Spill an entire can of beer down your shirt, if you’re really bad at shotgunning beer
- Have Bengie Molina run one-third of the way from home-to-first
- Realize you are listening to a Nickelback song and change the car radio
- Pick up a Fig Netwon you dropped on the floor and still have 1.47 seconds to spare
- Get called for three-in-the key in basketball, if they ever actually called that, which they don’t
- Watch this video twice
