When I saw this on the wire … it made me smile. As I wrote in this commentary for The National.

The idea of Bengie Molina hitting for the cycle … the man who gives new meaning to the expression “base-clogger” … who probably is the slowest man in baseball and a contender for Slowest Ever … the idea that he “legged out” a triple in his final at-bat Friday night to complete only the 289th cycle in baseball history is fairly astonishing.

Yes, it made me smile. And it made me want to write about it. Both for the blog, but also for the newspaper.

For obvious reasons … if you saw him play for the Giants or, a few years back, for the Angels.

Bengie is … oh, how can we say this delicately? … a tub of goo.

He is perhaps the slowest guy in baseball not just because he plays catcher, is getting old and has an endomorph’s body. He is the slowest guy because he also is fat.

Bengie doesn’t really run. I’m not even sure we can say he jogs. “Waddle” is the verb that comes to mind.

But he was waddling for all he was worth in the eighth inning at Fenway Park, as you can see on this video.

That was his version of a “dead sprint” from the moment he rounded first base (and, apparently, pulled a muscle) and saw the ball knocking around center field.  If he hadn’t been a triple shy of the cycle, I’m quite certain he would have pulled up at second instead of chugging on toward third for only the sixth triple of his 1,314-game career.

He was pleased, as noted in the AP game story …  and good for him. The first catcher to hit for the cycle who managed to make his homer a grand slam.  We looked up some highlights in the history of cycles as a sidebar for the paper. And note that, yes, in this market, we really did have to define a cycle for our readership. Even some of the guys in the department had no idea. (Of course, I still don’t grasp cricket, so we’re even.)

Bengie was a good guy, and the Angels could have used him when he was still in his prime, a few years ago. Now he is with the Rangers, and making an impression. And making us smile, too.