Did Lugo kick dirt on Willingham?

If you saw Josh Willingham hit the walk-off home run in the 10th inning of the rubber game between the Orioles and the Nats, you likely watched the completion of his home run trot. Nothing better than seeing the dogpile at home plate, plus for once Rob Dibble wasn't really bellowing or anything.

And if you watched closely, you might have seen something interesting as Willingham headed from second base to third. The video is here, and the relevant screen grabs are below.













First, Willingham smashed a Cla Meredith sinker over the left-center wall. It was gone from the jump, so Willingham took a tiny glance of admiration as the ball left the park.

"I was taking a strike and he threw a good one to hit on the 0-0 pitch," Willingham later told MASN's Debbi Taylor. "Then he threw me a couple of sliders, so I kind of figured a sinker was coming, and he threw it, left it up a little bit and I hit it well. I feel like when I'm getting some pitches to hit, I'm hitting them hard. That's about all you can do, look for your pitch to hit and it hit hard."







Since the game was technically over at this point, the Orioles and the umpires began leaving the field. As you can see, the Orioles began walking toward their dugout on the third-base line. But one player -- shortstop Julio Lugo, I believe -- walked perpendicular to his teammates, straight toward the jogging Willingham.













This is what's known in the parlance of sophisticated sports writers as a "collision course." That means they're going to bonk into each other.













As the two players approach doomsday, the Lugo draws back his right foot in an ominous manner. Willingham is, of course, clueless to this impending threat, instead trying to figure out how hard Wil Nieves -- who? -- will smash him on the head when he jumps on home plate.













The foot comes forward.













And the foot kicks dirt. I realize that this looks like he could just as easily be goose-stepping as kicking dirt, but watch the video for yourself and decide. Judging by anonymous commenters on Twitter and the Internet, at least a few people noticed this live.

"O's Third baseman [sic] certainly kicked dirt at Willingham," @Alloystang wrote. "As soon as he did our section freaked out. Bush league ball there."



"Did anyone see Lugo kick dirt on Willingham on the base path between 2nd and 3rd after the walk off?" someone asked on Nats Journal. "We need to buzz him next time we pitch to him - bush."



"I saw it," DoubleJs07 chimed in. "Lugo kicked dirt at him when he was about to round third LOL."



"hahahahaha lugo kicked dirt on willingham as he went by," someone posted on the Inside MD Sports game thread.



"We watched that dirt kicking a few times. It was hilarious," someone else added.







Well, all's well that ends well, I guess. Willingham didn't seem to so much as glance at the dirt kicker in his rear-view, instead heading home toward the dog pile and another afternoon of Silver Elvisdom.













Sadly, Wil Nieves was kind of frozen out of the head pounding.

(Thanks to @imissrfk and @twebster1229.)

(See also: an Oriolionals shirt. Just because.)