Furcal's rarity adds to an exclusive triple list

ST. LOUIS -- The fact Woody Williams handles the bat better than most pitchers led to the rarest play in baseball.

Atlanta Braves shortstop Rafael Furcal turned only the 12th unassisted triple play in major league history Sunday night, with the Cardinals' 14-game winner serving as the fall guy in a game the Cardinals rallied to win 3-2. Making solid contact made Williams a footnote to history.

On a 1-1 count, manager Tony La Russa removed the bunt sign and gave Williams, who's batting .250 with seven RBIs, the green light to swing away with runners on first and second and nobody out in the fifth inning. He also started the runners in an attempt to avoid a double play.

"I thought it was the play to make, but that's one of the risks, a ball on a line in the infield," La Russa said. "It's a bad memory, so I don't really think about it much."

Furcal leaped to snare Williams' liner, stepped on second base to double up Mike Matheny, and tagged out Orlando Palmeiro as he made a futile attempt to get back to first.

It was the first unassisted triple play in the majors since Oakland second baseman Randy Velarde did it against the New York Yankees on May 29, 2000.

Unassisted triple plays are so rare that the game once went 41 years between them, from Detroit Tigers first baseman Johnny Neun in 1927 to Washington Senators shortstop Ron Hansen in 1968. Then it was 14 more years before Phillies second baseman Mickey Morandini joined the ultra exclusive club.

On Sunday, the triple play had competition for dramatics from the Cardinals' eighth-inning rally on back-to-back homers from Eduardo Perez and Albert Pujols. Pujols connected for the game-winning blast against John Smoltz, the major league saves leader.

"I don't know what else anybody could want in a game," the Braves' Gary Sheffield said. "You had a playoff atmosphere, a triple play and home runs.

"It was as exciting for the players as it was for the fans."

The triple play was such a bang-bang-bang play that Furcal wasn't sure, at first, what he had accomplished.

"I didn't know right away," Furcal said. "I wasn't thinking of trying to get three outs by myself, I was just trying to get outs."

Ironically, it might have been Furcal's misplay that led to the scenario. Matheny singled to start the fifth and Palmeiro reached on his sacrifice bunt when Furcal was late covering second on an attempted forceout as second baseman Brian Giles backed up first.

He quickly made amends.

"It was a big play at the time because the game was 1-1," Furcal said. "I thought the play had a real flow. I thought we would have momentum after that."

Matheny, the Cardinals' slow-footed catcher, was thinking about scoring, not what might go wrong.

"With a head start, with me trying to run, I've still got a chance to get thrown out at the plate," he said. "I can't worry about that, I've just got to run."

Palmeiro didn't let being tripled off bother him, either.

"That ball's hit six inches higher and I think we win the game at that point," Palmeiro said. "I don't think the guys were deflated. I know I wasn't.

"I was hoping we'd get some stuff go our way and it sure did."