THE MOST Los Angeles Dodgers BEAUTIFUL play in Major League Baseball exists because its practitioner embraced a long-held axiom: Form follows function. Once upon a time, Trea Turner was a habitual head-first slider, his fingers and wrists and shoulders exposed to all the obstacles that exist when a man launches himself toward stationary objects. As he continued to play — and to watch teammates and opponents alike get hurt — he couldn’t abide the risk. There had to be a better way, a safer way.

1. THE MOST Los Angeles Dodgers BEAUTIFUL play in Major League Baseball
exists because its practitioner embraced a long-held axiom: Form follows
function. Once upon a time, Trea Turner was a habitual head-first slider, his
fingers and wrists and shoulders exposed to all the obstacles that exist when a
man launches himself toward stationary objects. As he continued to play —
and to watch teammates and opponents alike get hurt — he couldn’t abide
the risk. There had to be a better way, a safer way.
Turner had LA Dodgers Baseball Jersey long studied other experts of the craft,
a small fraternity of men who take baserunning every bit as seriously as hitting
and glovework. He marveled at Terrance Gore, the stolen-base specialist who
would slide at the last possible moment. Perhaps, Turner thought, there was a
way to marry his inherent aptitude with a touch of Gore’s moxie in a feet-first
approach. In 2020, when he was the shortstop for the Washington Nationals,

2. Turner toyed and tinkered until he found something that really worked — and
with it, a way to leverage his most elemental skills, this unique amalgamation
of a sprinter’s speed, a larger man’s power, Gumby’s flexibility, a
mathematician’s mind and a cat burglar’s daring.
>>>Read More: Official 2023 Los Angeles Dodgers Schedule And Results
ADVERTISEMENT
>>>See More Here: LA Dodgers Baseball Jersey
The world did not take notice until Aug. 10, 2021. It was 11 days after the
blockbuster trade that sent Turner and Max Scherzer to the Los Angeles
Dodgers. Turner stood on second. Will Smith laced a single into right field.
Bryce Harper fielded it clearly and unleashed a strong throw home. What
happened next was form overshadowing function.
Personalized Los Angeles Dodgers White Baseball Jersey

3. Personalized Los Angeles Dodgers White Green Light Baseball Jersey

4. About 10 feet from home plate, Turner jumped. His right leg stuck out — he
always slides right leg first — and his left leg tucked under his right, looking
like a backward 4. By the time Turner landed, he was practically past home
plate, except for his gloved left hand, which he matter-of-factly swiped across
the dish. With momentum already pulling around his torso, Turner embraced
the ride, popping up after a 180-degree spin and walking toward the dugout
in one uninterrupted motion. The velvetiness, the effortlessness — the aura of
the slide was born that day, even if the slide itself predated it.

5. “I’m not necessarily trying to be cool or anything,” Turner told ESPN in an
interview last week. “It’s more that I’m trying to slide correctly — efficiently. I
don’t slow down.”
All of that is true. Turner, now 29, never lays off the afterburners. He wouldn’t
dare take for granted the position of his body in space. And even if he’s not
necessarily trying to be cool or anything, the Trea Turner Slide very quickly
became A Thing — and, overnight, became the standard by which slides were
judged.
Few attempt to duplicate it, lest they be seen as poor imitations of a patented
maneuver. Which, over the past year, it has become. In a sport with gorgeous
swings and picturesque pitching deliveries, the humble slide has stolen hearts.
Though perhaps that shouldn’t be quite as much of a surprise as it is.
ON DEC. 21, 1958, Gene Kelly joined the NBC show “Omnibus” to explain to
viewers how dance and sports were far more alike than many realized. He
asked Johnny Unitas to throw a football and Bob Cousy to play tight defense
on the basketball court. When it came around to baseball, Kelly left the choice
up to Mickey Mantle.
“Give us the most exciting thing to you in any baseball game,” Kelly said.
“What would it be?”
“I think the most exciting thing for me in baseball,” Mantle said, “is trying to
steal second base or taking an extra base and sliding in real hard.”
EDITOR’S PICKS
Dodgers, Muncy reach 1-year, $13.5M extension
30d
MLB Power Rankings: Is there a new top team in the AL?
35dESPN

6. ‘They’re the dragon up the freeway’: Three things the Padres must do to
(finally) beat the Dodgers
44dAlden Gonzalez
Much as Kelly tried to replicate Mantle’s and make it resemble dance, the
slides of the 1950s were far grittier than the brand typically employed today.
Runners intentionally went in spikes up. Breaking up double plays wasn’t just
encouraged but mandated. Slides were sometimes slides and sometimes
messages. Injuries went both ways.
Kelly would swoon at what today’s game offers, where creativity, spawned by
Turner and his peers, abounds. The swim move, in which a slider offers an arm
for a fielder to tag, then pulls it back and reaches around with another, is
popular. Longtime utilityman Chris Coghlan once leapt over Yadier Molina
entirely, touching home plate on his frontflip. The inability to take out a
second baseman or catcher has necessitated players rely more on their skills.
Turner embodies it, prompting those around him to lavish praise.
“You’re looking at something that’s really spontaneous — a movement that
brings back the whole idea of letting yourself go and not caring you’re going
to get dirty and tear up your uniform,” said Jeffrey M. Katz, the author of “Plié
Ball,” a book that explores the intersection of baseball and dance. “When you
see a beautiful slide, you have a feeling there’s a thought process behind it.
There’s something deliberate — a sense that whoever’s doing it understands
that not only is it going to get him where he needs to go, it’s almost a
performance. It’s something people are observing. You’re putting your
creativity into it and giving fans something to enjoy. It’s a natural finesse.”
There is a universality to a Trea Turner Slide, an aesthetic that appeals to
anyone who has tried to salvage a fall with a slick recovery. (In other words,
every single one of us.) Turner’s falls may be intentional and controlled, but it
doesn’t lessen the magnificence of the finish, like a gymnast sticking the
landing or a stunt driver gliding into a narrow parking spot.
“Music in motion is kind of a trite saying,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts
said, “but it’s just the ultimate grace and body control with the power of

7. creating speed. And so to be able to slide and naturally stand up — that takes
a lot of speed and body control. And I don’t think people appreciate how hard
it is to do but it speaks to what an athlete he is.”
Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY Sports
“It’s the distance he covers and then how he just drops his hand in and puts it
perfectly on the plate and then just pops up like nothing ever happened,”
Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “It’s just a beautiful thing to
watch. It really is beautiful.”
Beautiful enough, certainly, to warrant inclusion on a dance show — except for
the fact that Turner wouldn’t ever get anywhere near one. In 2019, on the way
to their World Series championship, the Nationals developed a celebratory
tradition: Every time a player hit a home run, upon his reentry into the dugout,
he needed to dance.
“It was my worst nightmare,” Turner said.
Turner … well, Turner can’t dance. Once, he tried to do a simple groove in the
dugout and was a touch Elaine-ish for everyone’s taste. Another time, he
attempted the “Apache” dance from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The hip
thrusts were messy. The 360 in the dance wasn’t nearly as natural as his 180
on the slide.
“I work out at the same place every offseason. I work on form,” Turner said.
“When the guy I work with tells me how to move, I get really uncoordinated
really fast. But if you tell me go over there and catch this ball, I have a simple
goal and my body moves a little bit better. Dancing is not for me.”
Good thing pretty much everything on the baseball field is.
IN THE PAST, when he had some spare time, Trea Turner liked to build things.
He went to North Carolina State as a severely underrecruited baseball talent,
as well as someone who took his academics seriously enough that he planned
to major in chemical engineering. That left-brain desire to fabricate spilled

8. over to computers. Turner watched a YouTube video and assembled one. After
that, he put together a couple more without any tutorials.
That sort of structured approach to his game has brought Turner to places
well beyond those of someone who just slides pretty. He is one of the best
players in baseball. Turner is one hit behind Freeman for the major league
lead. If he passes him and holds on to the lead, Turner will be the first player in
baseball history to outright lead the entire major leagues in hits over three
consecutive seasons. (Ichiro Suzuki won five consecutive hit titles, but he tied
with Dustin Pedroia for the third.)
Few can match Turner’s combination of power (18 home runs) and
baserunning acumen (20 stolen bases). His speed remains the most
consistently excellent in the whole game, bursting 30-plus feet per second as
he approaches 30 years old.
“I’m young. I’m fresh,” Turner said. “I am getting older compared to how
young the game has gotten. I’m just trying to keep up with the 22-, 23-year-
olds.”
With good reason: Turner will hit free agency for the first time this winter and
face no shortage of suitors. His most similar batter, according to Baseball-
Reference: his former Dodgers teammate Corey Seager, who fetched a $325
million deal last winter. Turner is older. He doesn’t hit for quite the same
power. But the weaknesses in his game are limited, and his desire to stay
healthy and play every game this season — he’s 121 for 121 so far — suggests
Turner’s safe-slide strategy is doing its part.
There are still mysteries to it, best left to curious physicists and number
crunchers. Even Statcast can only quantify it to a point — sure, Turner ranks
first in the majors this year in 30-plus-foot-per-second runs with 100 (24 more
than the next best, Bobby Witt Jr.) and second in sprint speed, at 30.3 (0.1
seconds behind the leaders, Witt and Jose Siri). The difficult-to-measure
elements provide the real mystery. Why, for example, does Turner slide as if
friction does not exist for him? Mere mortals stop when they launch

9. themselves onto grass or dirt, and Turner keeps gliding like the rules of the
universe don’t apply — or as if he controls his weight so exquisitely that he
renders them a nonfactor. Or is it the length of the slides themselves, as
Freeman suggested, that makes Turner’s so beautiful? Is he actually sliding
multiple feet farther than his fellow players?
The answers don’t matter to Turner. As left-brain as he might be in planning
out his future, on the field his right-brain takes over. Baseball is a creative
game. It’s why a few weeks ago, he busted out the famous slide chasing down
a pop-up in foul territory that looked far out of reach. He caught the ball and
smooth-landed the slide, of course.
“I’m trying to be good at everything,” Turner said. “I want to be a good
defender. I want to be a good hitter. I want to be a good baserunner. And I’m
trying to improve on all of those things.”
>>>Check Out Here: kaiteez