One of the most hilarious plays in baseball you'll ever see

The Game Room
21

So a player has to touch all the bases for the run to be official, even if he hits the ball out of the park?

Now some stupid questions.

What happens if the runner gets so exited by having hit his home run, he has a heart attack as he’s running the bases and has to be taken off the field for medical treatment. Does that mean no home run? Suppose he comes back later and completes his run?

Say it’s a situation like this game where a player could have completed his home run but the umpire called the ball in play and he was tagged out. Now suppose the player has the aforementioned heart attack while the play is being reviewed and is unable to go back on the field when the umpires rule the home run was valid. Does no physical circuit of the bases still mean no run is scored?

22

If a player is legally entitled to score and absolutely can’t because of injury, a pinch-runner can come in mid-play. It’s hardly ever happened, but here (courtesy of retrosheet) is a fairly recent example:

“9/14/2005 (Red Sox at Blue Jays) - In the top of the 5th, Gabe Kapler was on first when Tony Graffanino hit a deep fly ball near the line in left that Kapler thought might be in play, so he started running hard. As he rounded second base, he ruptured his left Achilles tendon and sprawled on to ground. The ball went over the fence for a homer, but Graffanino wisely stopped at second base while Kapler was attended to. After many minutes, Kapler was loaded onto a cart and taken off the field. Alejandro Machado, appearing in his 4th Major League game, entered as a pinch-runner and scored his first Major League run in front of Graffanino.”

From Courtesy Runners.

They have an example also in which this happened to the guy who nit the homer, but it’s from like 1888.

I’d imagine the same rule applies in the situation like the one in St. Louis, where the batter is originally called out before dying or whatever.

23

Playing amateur baseball several years ago, a teammate of mine hit an out-of-the-park home run and in his trot tripped and missed 2nd base and continued to 3rd base. From the dugout, we yelled at him to go back and touch 2nd, which he did, but he went directly from halfway between 3rd and home to 2nd. Then he went from 2nd to 3rd to home. In the dugout, we knew he’d still done it wrong and hoped the other team wouldn’t catch it. They did. They appealed and he was called out for not touching 3rd base on his way back around to touch 2nd. I’d never seen it before and I’ve never seen it since, but yeah, baseball has some wonkey rules.

24

Henry Aaron once had a home run taken away and was called outbecause the umpire ruled he stepped out of the batter’s box during his swing.

When Aaron protested, the umpire replied that he’d also done it on his previous at-bat, but since that had resulted in an out, the ump didn’t call it.

25

There was a Little League game a while back where the base-runner was injured while running the bases on a home run, and the umps ruled that any of his teammates helping him would make it an out, whereupon the other team picked him up and carried him from base to base. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find the right Google terms to find it.

26

Your problem may be that he was a she (and the colored girls sing du-di-du…). It was a college softball game.

27

Why would the home run only count as a single if the pitch runner came in? That doesn’t make sense to me.

28

The trailing runner is out.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/runner_7.jsp

rule 7.08 (h)

7.08 Any runner is out when –

(h) He passes a preceding runner before such runner is out;

29

Well they’re not going to suspend the game over it. You can have a pinch runner inserted for an injured player though (as mentioned in the Kapler/Graffinino play). But if the runner or a substitution player for the runner does not complete the bases, it is not a home run. [EDIT: I see from other people’s replies that you can only insert a pinch runner for a man on base, not for the batter who’s running - if he can’t complete the circuit for a HR it is a single. Makes sense, I guess.]

See Robin Ventura’s Grand Slam Single for an example - he hit a game winning grand slam in a tie game in extra innings, and was mobbed by teammates as he approached second base and carried off the field. Normally a game ending HR scores all the runs on base plus the batter’s run, but since he never “touched 'em all” it was no longer a home run - it was officially scored as a single, since the only base he touched was first base. And since he had left the field, he could not return to finish running the bases, nor to have a runner inserted for him. However, the lead runner had already legally scored from third base on the “single”, so the game was still over. (Apparently the oddity caused a lot of havoc for over/under betting lines in Vegas, too.)

There have been other instances of “ball hit over the wall but not for a HR” due to the batter passing a slow-footed runner on base ahead of them in jubilation. Passing a runner is an immediate and automatic out, and for a too-fast HR trot it becomes a single (I guess it can’t be scored a “fielder’s choice…”?!)