It literally only happens once every couple of years, which is today. Looking at your calendar, you’ll see that today is February 29th for the first time since a little while ago because 2024 is the world’s quadrennial leap year. Since the earth’s rotation around the sun only lasts around 365.25 days, we have to add one additional day every four years to bring things back to roughly even. This is why we have the celebration known as “Leap Day,” or whatever you choose to name it.
Nevertheless, it also presents an opportunity for us to commemorate a distinct kind of “Leap Day.” Let’s go through the video archives and examine some of the greatest jumps in Yankees history in observance of today February 29th.
In recent memory, one of the most memorable regular season games is the Yankees’ victory against the Twins on July 23, 2019. Aaron Hicks’s leaping grab to stop another swing in the score after many late-inning rallies, comebacks, and lead changes brought the game to a close.
Just based on the plays themselves, one of the most entertaining to see is Ken Griffey Sr. climbing the left field wall in Yankee Stadium during a 1985 game against the Red Sox. Though he also had a taste for the spectacular, his Yankee career is perhaps most remembered for polluting the well of a particular son who wanted to play for the team.
Dave Winfield’s Yankee career has a little blemish, not so much because of his play as because of things he had to deal with from George Steinbrenner over the years. Without a doubt, Winfield was an incredible athlete.
It’s possible that Aaron Judge exaggerated a little bit on this catch because he wasn’t need to jump very far to make it. Nevertheless, it’s among the more significant ones on this list. In Game 3 of the 2017 ALDS, Judge’s grab helped keep the score at zero. The Yankees went on to win the game 1-0. Cleveland would have swept them out of the playoffs if they had lost that game. Rather, they overcame a 2-0 deficit to win that game as well as the following two to go to the ALCS.
Although Oswaldo Cabrera’s 2023 didn’t go as planned, his 2022 debut was a lot of fun. He had only played 18 professional innings in right field before that game, but one instance that best illustrates it is when he makes a home run robbery in the first at-bat of his first MLB game.
To be honest, there are a ton of more options as well. Please share your best Yankees leaping catch or play with us as we celebrate Leap Day this year.
