The team that started the whole bobble-head collectible scene for Major League Baseball is at it again, this time with a figurine immortalizing a highly controversial play from the 1991 World Series between the Atlanta Braves and the Minnesota Twins.
This coming season will be the 20th anniversary of what ESPN ranked as the best World Series ever played.
The bobble head commemorates one of the most memorable plays of a World Series filled with them.
Ron Gant had just singled in the top of the third inning with two outs. The score was 2-1 Twins, with Kevin Tapani toeing the mound for the Twins. Gant went to round first when Tapani took the throw from right fielder Dan Gladden and threw behind Gant to the first baseman Kent Hrbek.
Hrbek received the ball from Tapani at the same time Gant reached the base. Hrbek, who outweighed Gant by nearly 80 pounds at the time, applied the tag—with a little added force, to say the least. Hrbek proceeded to lift Gant's leg off the base.
To the 55,000 fans in attendance at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome on Oct. 20, 1991, umpire Drew Coble's out call lifted them into a roar.
"He definitely tried to push me off the base," Gant said.
The Twins ended the inning on that play and went on to win the game with 3-2 final score and took a 2-0 series advantage. In a series where the road team lost every game, plays like this were the difference for the Twins.
There is no date as to what game the bobble head will be given out as of yet, but the Twins will announce that information sometime in March.
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