Strangest. Play. Ever. Regular readers of this blog may correctly surmise that I attend many baseball games. This evening, my son and I traveled to Judy Johnson Field at Daniel S. Frawley Stadium in Wilmington, Delaware to watch the Wilmington Blue Rocks host the Winston-Salem Dash in a Carolina League contest.

The Dash were trailing 6-2 in the top of the eighth inning when they led off the inning with two singles. At that point, with runners on first and third, the third batter of the inning drew a walk on the 3-2 pitch. The runner on first was running on the pitch that turned out to be ball four. The next thing we knew, the runner who would have reached second on the walk was heading back toward first base when the second baseman received the ball from the pitcher, applied a tag, and the baserunner who had been on first before the batter walked was called out for the first out of the inning.

An article reporting on the outcome of the game available from the web site of the Dash explains that the runner at first base mistakenly thought that the batter had fouled-off the pitch, and the runner was thus returning to first base after having touched second base. Because the ball remained in play, the baserunner could be (and was) tagged out after he touched and then departed from second base.

The Dash did not score in that inning and ended up losing the game by a score of 7-2. You can access the box score at this link, while the play-by-play description (which incorrectly states that the baserunner in question was tagged out trying to go to third) can be accessed here.

Update: My friend Dave S. has forwarded a link to a Baseball Digest article from September 2002 headlined “Baseball rules corner: advancing runner should be wary when ‘ball four’ is called.”

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