Witnessing Elly De La Cruz

We haven’t even reached May, but on Sunday, Elly De La Cruz made what will certainly go down as one of the best defensive plays of the 2025 season. In the bottom of the second inning in Baltimore, Reds opener Brent Suter clipped the outside corner with a slider and Jackson Holliday fought it off, sending a weak line drive up the middle off the end of his bat. The ball was ticketed for center field, but nobody told De La Cruz, who ranged to his left and did his best Superman impression. He seemed to hang in the air forever as he corralled what would have been the game-tying hit.

At this point, it’s possible that Superman is going to start doing an Elly De La Cruz impression. Truly, on this Easter Sunday, Elly was risen. De La Cruz got full extension, utilizing every inch of his 6-foot-5 frame. He sacrificed his face in the process, selling out for the catch so completely that he smacked his chin and the brim of his hat into the dirt when he finally landed. When the ball found leather, the Orioles fans who had started cheering in anticipation of an RBI single instead found their voices rising in both pitch and decibel level as their disparate vocalizations merged into one united “Awww!”

I spent a significant portion of my Monday morning watching this play on repeat, then searching for as many angles of it as I could. I wanted to see the catch, but even more than that, I wanted to see the reactions. You know how when you’ve watched your favorite movie enough times, you no longer need to keep your eyes on the focus of the frame at any given moment? You start to notice all the subtle things going on in the background, the way one extra covers their face to keep from laughing, or a tiny visual joke on a blackboard. After I’d marveled at De La Cruz’s athleticism until my eyes lost the ability to focus, I started watching everyone else marvel at it.

Brent Suter
Without question, Reds pitcher Suter was the most excited person in the building. He was the audience surrogate, and he did an excellent job conveying all of the excitement that the rest of us felt. The baserunner, the second baseman, the second base umpire, they all played it cool and acted like they’d been there before. Not Suter. When De La Cruz made the play, he literally jumped for joy. He threw his arms into the air and kicked his legs out wide. It was pure childlike exuberance and it was beautiful to see.

Two details made Suter’s ebullience even more enjoyable. The first was the spread-eagle shadow right below him on the field when he jumped. Because the sun was high in the sky early on during a 1:00 game, its angle foreshortened the shadow into a tiny, adorable version of Suter. It looked like a little kid trying to make a snow angel right there in the middle of the infield, or maybe a tree frog soaring from branch to branch.

The second detail is even better. Every time you watch the play, it looks like De La Cruz just hangs in the air forever. He’s so tall and his leap takes him so far across the diamond. He just seems to float horizontally like a high jumper. However, it turns out that Suter’s celebratory leap actually had a longer hangtime than De La Cruz’s dive! I timed up the clips below so that both players leave the ground at the exact same time, then I slowed them way down.

It’s only about a tenth of a second, but Suter really did stay in the air for longer. It makes perfect sense. He was jumping straight up into the air, while De La Cruz spent much of his force pushing himself sideways rather than upwards. Still, it feels very wrong that Suter, jumping up and down like a little kid on Christmas morning, would get more hangtime than the guy making the most athletic play we’ve seen so far this season.

TJ Freidl
No one had a better view of the play than center fielder TJ Friedl. He wasn’t the closest to the play, but he had an unobstructed view as it unfolded right in front of him. More importantly, he very much thought that he would have to field this ball. He started charging toward the infield, assuming that he’d have to make a do-or-die play if he wanted any chance of keeping the runner from scoring. When Freidl realized that De La Cruz had somehow gotten to the ball, he threw his hands up over his head, demonstrating his astonishment by seemingly signaling for a safety.

I tend to agree that the play should have somehow earned two points and the ball for the Reds.

These Two Orioles Fans
Friedl was far from the only person to throw his hands above his head as the play went down. Only one of the camera angles I could find actually showed the stands, and it was a very zoomed-out shot from center field, so I apologize for the low quality. However, the two Orioles fans in the center of the frame make it worth it. In the third row, the fan with the black shirt and orange sleeves rises to his feet and starts clapping. However, he only has time to put his hands together once before his excitement turns to disbelief. He throws his hands up in a classic surrender cobra pose and his jaw absolutely drops.

Right in front of him, another fan raises both fists triumphantly as the ball leaves Holliday’s bat, then he quickly transitions from triumph to his own surrender cobra when the ball hits leather. In the top left corner, you can see one Reds fan jump up to celebrate when everyone else in the section starts processing their dejection.

This One Reds Fan, Who Spread His Arms and Flew Away
This Reds fan is even more fun. Here, you can see two full sections of Orioles fans, and, well, they care a bit. A few raise their arms when they think Holliday has knocked in a run, but they’re not about to leave their seats or anything. In fact, only one Orioles fan rises during the play, and when De La Cruz makes the catch, he simply starts to sit back down again. These are the expensive seats right behind home plate and that’s not generally the location for the most engaged fans. Almost no one on the bottom left reacts at all during the entire play. However, there is one true fan in frame. He’s at the bottom right in a Reds jersey, and he absolutely shoots out of his seat when De La Cruz does his thing.

The clip cuts off while the fan is still jumping up, so we have no idea how high he actually got. I like to think that he never stopped rising. He just rocketed right out of his seat and into the Baltimore afternoon sky, climbing higher and higher, fueled only by the raw power of the greatness he has witnessed (and maybe a couple Natty Bos). Maybe one day he’ll come back down.

The best part of all is that his leap came at the exact same moment as Suter’s. I’ll leave you with one last GIF, zoomed out a bit so that you can see the fan in the top left and Suter in the bottom right.

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