Bizarre Out Triangle
January 14, 2008 by Geoff Young
Filed under Odds and Ends
John Beamer at Hardball Times (full disclosure: I contribute to THT) describes 11 unusual baseball rules. There’s all kinds of good stuff in here, but my favorite is this:
There are runners on first and second with no outs. The batter hits a fair ball that can be fielded by one of the infielders. He is out by the infield fly rule even if no one touches the ball. Then the crazy stuff really starts. The runner on first passes the runner on second, so the runner on first is out due to rule 7.08, which forbids a runner overtaking another runner on the base paths. Two outs. The runner at second is then struck by the batted ball as it lands (rule 7.08 again — look, it covers a whole host of base running situations). There we have it three outs and no fielder has touched the ball.
That is so esoteric and absurd. It’s freakin’ genius, is what it is. I’m getting verklempt. Anyway, go read the whole article. It’s well worth the time…
