May 27th marks the five year anniversary of one of the most ridiculous plays you'll ever see in baseball. To put it simply, Báez created an foolish error on a routine ground ball, stuck around to call him safe, and then took base after base while the Pirates threw the ball around. It was reminiscent of baseball you'd see kids playing in little league.
If you didn't see Javy Báez when he was on the Cubs, you truly missed out. They didn't call him "El Mago (The Magician)" for nothing. Things just happened around him when he was on the baseball diamond. Chaos had a way of showing up when Javy really needed it, and it frequently led to Báez being the hero of the ball game.
Javy Báez turned a routine inning-ending play into complete chaos
5 years ago today, Javy Báez gave us an unforgettable moment in Pittsburgh 🎩🪄 pic.twitter.com/v8j9f8dJ19
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) May 27, 2026
The play in particular show Javy essentially stealing first base. Players have occasionally reached first via error, but they've never single-handedly created them like this. If the first baseman had simply stepped on first base, the inning was over. But Báez had a magic ability to create mistakes where ones didn't exist.
This was a perfect representation of Javy being on the Cubs. His consistency was always something the Cubs could rely on, and his glove on the infield was unmatched at the time. That era of the Cubs was represented so well by Báez. They were aggressive, emotional, and flashy all at once. The lows on the team were so low that I can still recall the despair I felt during those games.
Five years later, the play still feels impossible to explain to somebody who never watched Báez play every day. Cubs fans became used to the chaos, but this was the absolute peak of it. One routine ground ball somehow turned into a run scored, multiple errors, and Báez standing safely on third base after striking out earlier in the at bat.
That version of the Cubs played with emotion every single night, and Báez was usually at the center of it. Whether he was making impossible tags, stealing extra bases, or forcing defenders into mistakes, he made baseball feel unpredictable in the best way possible. Plays like this are why Cubs fans still talk about “El Mago” years after he left Chicago.
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