The Pirates may have committed the biggest error in baseball history

Bill Buckner. Larry Walker. Jose Canseco. Will Craig.

I don’t think Will Craig anticipated before today’s game that he would join a list of players with viral fielding errors, but here we are. Let’s set the scene:

It’s the top of the third inning in a pretty normal Thursday matinee.

Pirates trail 1-0 to the Cubs in the third inning. There’s still plenty of baseball left this afternoon, but what ensued immediately after is a script you simply cannot write, so I’ll just show you in video form.

The inning ends if Will Craig stands on first base, but in a lapse of concentration, it turned into two more runs for the Cubs. But we should also point out the fact that Erik Gonzalez’s throw was off to begin with. Michael Perez also made a poor throw back to first base. The whole infield fell asleep on this one.

Twitter had a field day with this too and it was filled with moments of shock and amazement.

I hope Craig doesn’t beat himself up for this. He’s had his fair share of ups and downs in his first month in the majors. It’s a bad error, but it’s a mistake he probably won’t make again. It’s also a major teachable moment for every fielder out there.