Inspired by Amazing Catch, a Sociologist Offers Brief Reflection on Craft

This might be the best catch I've seen in my life.




L.A. Dodger Yasiel Puig made that catch in a game yesterday. To be that good at something, I wish. I plan to revisit this catch often. It's a person in action at work, an exceptional moment. How much practice is required in order to make a play like this? Commentators might be quick to attribute a catch like this to "physical talent," but I read it as someone who enjoyed an outstanding moment in the course of working at one's craft.

If I have a moment like this in my life, it won't involve making a spectacular play on a baseball field. In my profession, it would be a superb act of teaching in the classroom, or an awesome burst of writing. I constantly work at the craft of teaching and writing. I strive for excellence in the classroom, and I'm forever in pursuit of the perfect sentence. I can only hope to make a catch like this in my field someday.