Baseball Is a Game with No Rules, Only Exceptions

And now, as Monty Python once said, for something completely different.

Have you ever tried to explain the game of (Major League) baseball to someone who knows nothing about it? I tried once, back in the 1980s, to explain it to my (English) father-in-law, and found to my dismay that baseball is a game that doesn’t have rules, only exceptions. Allow me to illustrate.

The obvious place to start is with the length of a game. There isn’t one; you play until somebody wins (unless it’s the All-Star game, and the commissioner of baseball decides both sides have had enough). A normal game lasts nine innings – unless the home team, which bats last, is ahead after 8 ½ innings, in which case the game is 8 ½ innings long. So, normally, a game is 9 innings – unless it’s more, as when it goes to extra innings. Or unless it’s less, as with a rain-shortened game, which still counts – unless it’s less than five innings, in which case it doesn’t count. And if a game is long enough to be official, but tied and can’t be completed, say because of darkness or rain or an earthquake, then it doesn’t count – except that the player’s statistics (strike outs, hits, etc.) do count. In other words, players can officially record plays in games that didn’t officially happen.

Or consider the most elementary part of baseball: a single batter’s at-bat. How many strikes until the batter is out? Three – unless the batter swings at strike three and the catcher drops the ball, in which case the batter can choose to run to first base. If he can make it before he’s thrown out or tagged out by the catcher, he’s safe, even though he’s had three strikes. Does a foul ball constitute a strike? Yes – unless it’s the third strike, then it doesn’t count – except if it’s a foul tip that’s caught and held by the catcher, in which case it’s an out, even though it was a foul ball. Otherwise, a foul with two strikes is not an out – except, of course, unless you’ve attempted to bunt the ball and fouled it off, in which case a foul ball with two strikes is an out, whether it’s caught or not. Still with me?

What’s a hit?

Next, what determines whether you get a hit, as opposed to making an out? Well you either hit a fly ball that is not caught – or that is caught, but then dropped or not controlled – or you hit a ground ball that touches the ground before it’s caught by a fielder. In either case, you must make it to first base before the ball is thrown in and the base is tagged. Or you are tagged before you reach the base.

Are you out if the ball is caught before it touches the ground? Yes – unless the ball hits a wall and is caught before it hits the ground, in which case it’s treated like a grounder. Unless you’re playing in an indoor stadium, such as in Toronto or Minneapolis, and the ball is hit high enough that it hits a light fixture or some such that is in fair territory, and then is caught before it hits the ground, in which case it can be an out, a home run, or a grounder, depending on the local rules pertaining to that particular park.

Now, if you’re on base, and the batter hits a fly ball, can you run? No; you must wait until the ball is caught before you run – unless you leave the base before the ball is caught, and the opposing team doesn’t try to put you out by throwing the ball to the base and tagging the base (which causes the umpire to make a ruling about whether you left before the fly ball was caught or not). If the other team doesn’t try to put you out in this way, you can run whenever you like, score if you can, you’re not out, and the run counts.

How many bases to score a run?

How many bases do you touch if you go all the way around and score? Four – first, second, third, and home. Unless, say, you’re on first, advance beyond second on a fly ball, touching second base as you pass, then see that it’s a fly ball that’s been caught, and retreat back to first base. In that case, you have to touch second base again before you can go back to first. In this example, then, if you made it back to first without being thrown out, and later came around to score, you would have touched seven bases in order to score: first, second, second, first, second, third, home.

I could go on, but you get the point. And for those who still believe baseball actually has rules, I would ask that you explain the Infield Fly Rule to someone who grew up playing cricket.

Oh, and one final commentary on baseball, this one downright metaphysical. Nothing happens officially without an umpire’s ruling, and there are three categories of umpires. In calling balls and strikes, for example, the first kind says, “I calls ’em as they are.” The second category says, “I calls ’em as I sees ’em.” And the third kind says (correctly), “They ain’t nothin’ ’til I calls ’em.” And that would seem to be the final word on baseball – except that they’re talking about bringing in instant replay to allow umpires to be overruled on disputed calls, in which case, category two umpires are correct, not category three.

As the great yogi of baseball – Yogi Berra – once observed, “Baseball is 90% mental — the other half is physical.”

© Copyright, Richard Worzel, June 2009.