Kurt Wilson stared keenly at the eyes of Texas Longhorns reliever Aaron Nixon as Nixon came to his set position on Friday night at Dan Law Field in Lubbock, Texas. It was the bottom of the 10th inning, and Wilson's Texas Tech Red Raiders were tied with Texas, 4-4.
Wilson took his lead from third base, representing the winning run. When Nixon looked down and kept his eyes down for a split-second too long, Wilson bolted for home plate. His teammate, Owen Washburn, saw the developing play as he led away from second, and as it became clear that there wouldn't even be a throw to the plate, he raised his hands triumphantly in the air and started sprinting toward Wilson as he dove in head-first for the walk-off steal of home.
A walk-off steal of home? It doesn't get much rarer than that in baseball. How rare is it, you ask? While it has happened a bit more frequently in collegiate play, the last straight steal of home to win a Major League game came 40 years ago, when the Cardinals' Glenn Brummer swiped the plate to beat the Giants in 12 innings at Busch Stadium on Aug. 22, 1982.
The context in which Wilson's heroics took place Friday made it all the more sweet for No. 16 Texas Tech -- the walk-off steal resulted in a win over the second-ranked team in the nation in the Big 12 Conference opener, and it came while the batter, Dillon Carter, was down in the count, 0-2, with two outs.
You've heard the term "heads-up baserunning." But this is the pinnacle of heads-up baserunning, juxtaposed against a pitcher who made a costly "heads-down" mistake.