Kovacevic: All that's 'beautiful' about baseball

"Nothing better," Gregory Polanco was beaming through that schoolboy smile. "There's nothing better."

There really isn't. Not in baseball, anyway.

Not the richly anticipated arrival of Chris Archer on this sweetest of summer nights at PNC Park. Not Archer's two riveting, rally-killing strikeouts in the second. Not the offense, powered by Polanco's early two-run triple, overcoming Archer's admittedly 'amped up' 4 1/3-inning debut. Not the appreciative, forgiving, passionate crowd of 26,773 that demonstrated all over again that our city does, in fact, care about baseball. Not Keone Kela posting a zero in his own debut. Not Adam Frazier's bounceback three hits, including the winner in the eighth. Not Felipe Vazquez reminding everyone who's the real closer here.

Not even clawing past the Cardinals, 7-6, to break their tie in the Central standings amid an honest-to-Nutting pennant race in Pittsburgh.

Nope. Nothing's better in baseball than the great throw from the outfield.

"Nothing," Sean Rodriguez was echoing from the nearest stall. "The ball's getting to Greg, it's there on a bounce, you know they're sending the guy, you there's going to be a play, we all jump up to the top railing of the dugout ..."

He stopped there, but that's OK. It's my job to tell the stories around here.

Not that I'd need to, for anyone who witnessed it:

Yeah, that.

“It was perfect. I didn't move," Francisco Cervelli would recall from the receiving end. "Probably the best throw he’s ever had in his life.”

Probably?

"The best," Polanco would tell me. "Definitely the best."

The Pirates were up, 6-5, in the seventh, Kela on the mound. Two outs. Matt Carpenter on second. Paul DeJong in the box. The latter looped a single into right, and Polanco, rather than charging into it, took a palpably calm stride.

"It was one hop. It was coming to me," Polanco allowed, but then seemed to catch himself. "I mean, I didn't have a lot of time. But it was comfortable, you know?"

Right. Comfortable. In the same way that one can look comfortable conquering a self-dubbed sport of failure by going 11 for his past 22 at the plate, putting up an insane 1.034 OPS over the past two months and, just to run up the score, owning a left arm that ought to be an outlawed firearm.

He took his time. He stepped into it. And he caught, in the corner of his eye, St. Louis third base coach Jose Oquendo waving home Carpenter.

Questionable?

Not among the Pirates I asked. Two outs, he's got to be sent, even if that's a 25-year-old Roberto Clemente out there.

"He has to go," Polanco acknowledged. "All I'm thinking is I've got to go home no matter what."

Well, one more thing.

"Bounce."

This is an important, if seldom discussed facet of the great throw. People like you and me will get floored by throws that arrive in the air.

Like this Clemente classic from 1971:

Or Dave Parker's historic bullet in the 1979 All-Star Game:

Or this never-to-be-forgotten Jose Guillen monster in Denver in 1998:

No, I'm not comparing those throws to this one. That'd be silly. Rather, I'm emphasizing that we tend to remember those that never touch terra firma. And that's actually not ideal, to hear the participants tell it.

"You always want that bounce as it's coming toward you, whether you're an infielder or the catcher," Jordy Mercer was explaining to me. "There's a lot less chance of the ball knuckling or changing direction on you."

"I always try for one bounce," Polanco continued. "I don't want the ball to move."

Oh, it moved all right., At 97.0 mph, according to Major League Baseball's radars installed in each stadium.

As for the rest of the Pirates, they could just watch and wait. And anticipate.

"They're right to send the guy," Josh Harrison affirmed. "But if you're us, you like that. You welcome that."

And who had the best view?

"Definitely David Freese," J-Hay came right back. "Because he's the cutoff guy, and there's no way he's thinking about cutting that off."

Ha!

Sure enough, the one bounce was followed by a seamless tag -- "I wasn't going to screw that up," Cervelli joked -- and a collective roar that might have been unlike any heard on this particular parcel in far too long.

Kela, in that moment, fit right in:

I asked Clint Hurdle about it, too.

"A beauty," he'd reply with his own boyish smile. "Just a beauty."

Nothing better.

MATT SUNDAY GALLERY