Wiktionary
n. 1 (context idiomatic sports English) A successful play or other manoeuvre during a sporting competition in which one or more players show off unnecessarily in order to entertain or impress the spectators. 2 (context idiomatic by extension English) An action or stratagem that is excessively dramatic or sensational and that is intended to appeal to members of the public or to a particular audience.
Usage examples of "grandstand play".
So leave me alone with your last big efforts-and grandstand play for glory.
What a grandstand play for sympathy the old bastard could make now!
Keith we're talking about went hollering and screaming all over the bridge making a big grandstand play about wanting to fire on the shore battery when the Stan field was in my line of fire and it was absolutely impossible to fire.
But, if greed were the motivating factor, the grandstand play of laying the corpse in the fire ring of a kiva struck her as out of place.
But I have an idea for a sort of publicity stunt, a grandstand play that should clinch the idea of reanimation's safety.
Sten damned near lost the knife, reeled back, cursing himself for even thinking of a grandstand play.
Remember the grandstand play that Fury wreaked on the database computer at Concilium Orb when it helped Hydra escape from Scotland?
Starley City is going to build the plant whether we like it or not, so I can't see anyone making a grandstand play with some little bureaucrat whose job is to sign some paper.
The wife had taken pills, perhaps in a genuine suicide attempt, perhaps as a grandstand play to save her marriage.
You still have to go through the finger and toe basics before you'll get any credit for that grandstand play.
This is no time for you to make a grandstand play just to overcome a personal trauma.