Which ball players would make the best ice dancers?

This winter I really got into the Olympic spirit. It turns out that cheering for healthy, fresh athletes who represent the idea of ​​the United States is quite a balm for the psychological wounds inflicted by watching the United States rapidly collapse into kleptocratic authoritarianism. I’m also already a Peacock subscriber because I love Parks and recreation. So I watch the curling. I watch hockey. I look at long track skating and short track skating, even though short track skating is really just a cross between demolition derby and cockfighting. And if you had told me two weeks ago how much cross-country skiing I would be watching this week, I would have asked you if I was about to suffer some sort of brain injury.

The only sport I haven’t watched much is figure skating. I wish I could watch it more often, but unfortunately I suffer from a debilitating sequin allergy. I can manage a short routine with nothing more than some acute rhinitis, but even a few seconds of exposure to Tara Lapinski and Johnny Weir has me sitting on an entire box of EpiPens. Still, one evening last week I pregamed with a dangerous amount of Benadryl and Allegra (or as the kids call it, Ballegradyl) and watched the ice dance with my charming wife. Like many people around the world, we gained a newfound appreciation for Twizzles. The Twizzle is the most difficult maneuver in ice dancing. It involves gathering a lot of speed and then spinning across the ice on one skate, close to your partner, in perfect synchronization. Here’s the best Twizzle sequence ever performed, according to a YouTube user who is an owl.

In this article we will capitalize the word Twizzle, partly out of respect for the extremely capricious language conventions of the International Skating Union Rulebookbut mainly because it’s fun. A Level 4 Twizzle, the highest level of Twizzle, involves two sets of at least four rotations. In the second set you should spin in the opposite direction and on a different edge of your skate.

During your Twizzles you should also add at least 4 additional features from 3 different groups (I told you the capitalization was wild). These extra features are movements that make Twizzle more difficult, such as continuous arm movements (Group A, upper body), holding the blade of your skate (Group B, skating leg and free leg), or starting your Twizzle with a Dance Jump (Group C, pattern, entry, exit). Was that enough to turn your head to Twizzling? It might help to watch a short instructional video with a voiceover that sounds like it was recorded in a particularly narrow crawl space:

So that’s Twizzling. What does it have to do with baseball? Unfortunately not as much as you would hope. The participants do have bulging quadriceps, and they move gracefully across a pristine surface while wearing shoes with blades on the bottom, and they put all their effort into generating maximum rotational energy, but because it’s rare for baseball players to spin more than once, and it’s even rarer to see them start those spins with a dance jump. The closest baseball equivalent to a Twizzle is when the center fielder chases a ball into the hole and then has to shoot the ball back into the infield. Since all their momentum is pushing them toward the glove side and away from the infield, the only way they can get anything off the throw is to use that momentum to execute a neat little spin. It’s kind of like baseball’s equivalent of gravity assist.

I have always been fascinated by this particular movement. I still remember the first time I ever saw it. I was a junior in high school, and during batting practice before a game, this huge guy from Strasburg did it as casually as you would initially scoop up a routine grounder. I was stunned. His name was Joe Bauserman. Later that night I threw him a fastball that just missed the angle low and outside, and he reached out and hit it over the right field fence, which doesn’t normally happen when you’re a junior in high school. A few years later, he was called up by the Pirates and played wideout for a few months Andrew McCutchen. I think they still keep in touch.

I usually play in the infield, so I’ve only had the opportunity to try the Baseball Twizzle once. I was playing in an adult league in Queens, and someone smoked a line drive into the right field gap with a runner on third. I chased it and made one of my better running catches, then turned to fire the ball home. But I didn’t twizzle. I wasn’t an outfielder and, unlike Andrew McCutchen, I had completely forgotten about Joe Bauserman. Instead of turning away from the infield and executing a full spin, I fought the momentum and turned toward the infield. It was a mistake. I was no match for the momentum, sending me crashing backwards into the ground. Luckily, our thrower was a doctor, and he declared me concussion-free (although I do remember experiencing an unusual urge to watch cross-country skiing over the next few days).

In the interest of international cooperation, we will award medals to the best Twizzlers in the major competitions. I spent much of Wednesday watching clips of midfielders playing in the gaps and jotting down all the Twizzles I could find. We will now count down the top three Twizzlers. To preserve the spirit of ice dancing at the actual Olympics, the judging will range from opaque to erratic to arbitrary to downright corrupt. (Should a major league center fielder want to get into medal contention, contact me via Venmo and we’ll work something out.) I will say, however, that it was not my intention to recognize players from three different countries, or for all three to participate in the World Baseball Classic. That was honestly a pure case of Olympic serendipity. Here we go. Buy a big old dose of Ballegardyl and let’s hand out some Twizzling medals. (Editor’s note: Do not take Ballegradyl under any circumstances. We are still writing settlement checks for the Percoviagranax debacle.)

Bronze medal: Junghoo Lee

The first medal goes to South Korea’s Jung Hoo Lee, an outstanding achievement for a player in his first full season here in the United States. Lee is set to represent South Korea in the World Baseball Classic, so keep an eye on Twizzles in Pool C. Still, Lee reached the podium more for quantity than quality, which is why he stands here with bronze. He narrowly defeated the Rockies fly hunter Brenton Doylewhose Twizzles were smoother, but less frequent. Lee’s Twizzles were often lax, and he rarely added extra features – would it kill the man if he occasionally lifted his cleat above his head? – but the judges appreciated that at times he seemed to go out of his way to execute a turn. All he has to do is string a few together in a row and he’s in business.

Silver medal: Pete Crow Armstrong

Pete Crow-Armstrong is a fitting recipient for a silver medal here. Like Lee, he is set to represent his home country in the World Baseball Classic when he mans center field for Team USA in Pool B. More importantly, he is one of the best defensemen in baseball. As with much of his playing, PCA’s Twizzles erupts into a frothy mix of exuberant puppy-dog energy and athletic grace. It’s worth noting that he overcame a small hurdle to get here. Lefties get fewer opportunities to Twizzle than righties because when they move to their glove side, they move toward third base, so a spin isn’t always necessary for that particular throw. That didn’t stop Crow-Armstrong, who performed multiple Twizzles into third place and even came out of a dive Twizzled once, an extra feature that won over even the cynical (and definitely corrupt) French judge.

Gold Medal: Julio Rodriguez

Our gold medal Twizzler represents the Dominican Republic in the WBC. Julio Rodríguez’s Twizzles aren’t always as flashy as Crow-Armstrong’s, but no player Twizzled more than J-Rod. His Twizzles weren’t just an affectation either. Rodríguez always turned with purpose. He broke his steps. He turned hard. He came up shooting. He sent the ball to the base with a bounce to make sure he never knocked anyone over. All of this results in Twizzles so fundamentally sound that they even brought a tear to the eye of a grumpy Ukrainian judge, and let me tell you, that guy has seen a thing or two.

Rodríguez’s Twizzles kept runners from advancing multiple times. He often looked like a spinning ballet dancer, turning his head to locate his target as quickly as possible to ensure an accurate throw. On one play he just supported the right fielder. It didn’t seem like there was much chance of the ball even hitting him, but not only was he ready, he was ready to pull off a textbook Twizzle, and it might even have scored a Level 2 Twizzle if he had just danced into it.

Congratulations to all our medal winners, and join us tomorrow as we discuss which ball players are the best at doubles luge.