Back on July 28th, Omar Infante and Alcides Escobar teamed up for one of the best defensive plays of the season:
Since then, Baseball Tonight has run their semi-daily vote on Twitter to name their Web Gem, where they pit the day's best defensive play against the previous day's winner. Since then, Escobar and Infante have dominated the competition. Going back as far as August 7th, the voting tells a very particular story:
Time to vote for reigning #WebGem! RT for Infanta & Escobar teamwork up-the-middle Fav for Pillar flying catch http://t.co/S7ees5fldU
— Baseball Tonight (@BBTN) August 7, 2015
Time to vote for reigning #WebGem! RT for Infante & Escobar flip up-the-middle Fav for Sizemore HR robbery http://t.co/jmMcELAAt3
— Baseball Tonight (@BBTN) August 8, 2015
Time to vote for reigning #WebGem! RT for Infante & Escobar flip up-the-middle Fav for Puig diving catch http://t.co/HeZzusQ8i5
— Baseball Tonight (@BBTN) August 11, 2015
Time to vote for reigning #WebGem! RT for Infante & Escobar teamwork flip up-the-middle Fav for Gomez leaping grab http://t.co/X9FDj7UTId
— Baseball Tonight (@BBTN) August 12, 2015
Time to vote for reigning #WebGem! RT for Infante & Escobar flip up-the-middle Fav for Rizzo going into the crowd http://t.co/GX7YFGjz9d
— Baseball Tonight (@BBTN) August 13, 2015
It looked as if the Infante/Escobar combo was going to get grandfathered into the Web Gem Hall of Fame, along with Alex Gordon's catch reaching out and lunging into the stands against the White Sox back in April:
Alex Gordon's 50-time reigning #WebGem is so good we have to retire it. See what he thinks at 10 ET on ESPN2. Hint: https://t.co/9i6IuWlq6v
— Baseball Tonight (@BBTN) June 24, 2015
I mean, if Anthony Rizzo climbing the tarp and falling into the stands isn't going to beat it, then it is very likely that nothing would. It was just a question of waiting out the fifty votes, or hoping that someone made a better play.
On August 14th, the Kansas City keystone play beat out Francisco Lindor's glove flip:
Time to vote for reigning #WebGem! RT for Infante & Escobar flip up-the-middle Fav for Lindor glove flip http://t.co/n4afFamtL1
— Baseball Tonight (@BBTN) August 14, 2015
But then, something peculiar happened. The following day, the Royals were not in the vote for reigning Web Gem. Neither was the Francisco Lindor play, which was thoroughly outvoted. Instead, Anthony Rizzo's trip up the tarp came back for an encore:
Time to vote for reigning #WebGem! RT for Rizzo tarp catch into the crowd Fav for Cespedes throw from center http://t.co/BFbUaJhYXE
— Baseball Tonight (@BBTN) August 16, 2015
Baseball Tonight was reached out to for comment. At the time of this publication, they had not responded.
Whether it is media bias, a clerical error, or a BBTN intern who happens to be a fan of the North Siders, we may never know. But the plain truth is, Kansas City went through the due process of voting, and Baseball Tonight superseded the democratically elected Web Gem to implement their own winner. Not only that, but they gave the award to the play that had lost two days after being nominated.