Baseball’s Weirdest Rule

The Fourth Out — and The Joy of Baseball podcast and experience is here!

OK, so you definitely want to talk about that Red Sox fourth-out play … but before we get there, today’s a super exciting day: Today, Molly Knight and I are finally launching The Joy of Baseball podcast and experience.

Every week, we’re going to talk to a special guest about what makes baseball wonderful. We’re starting, obviously, with Mike Schur, who tells a story that you absolutely have to hear — it’s so uplifting even as it revolves around one of the darkest days of our times. Anyway, we have some amazing guests lined up.

Unfortunately — but not unexpectedly — we are going through a few technical pains — there are still a few kinks. But the podcast is live on Spotify and should be everywhere else soon thanks to the hard work of our crack team!

And, of course, you can watch the video podcast here.

The great thing for Molly and me is that we plan for this to be bigger than just the podcast. We are trying to pump all sorts of baseball joy into the world, so for our paid subscribers we’re going to do some bonus pieces, a whole series of live chats that will go through the pennant races and the playoffs and (we’re actually planning one to kick things off in just a few minutes at 3 p.m. Eastern today), and hopefully even live events.

You can subscribe here, or, this is kind of cool: if you have not yet subscribed for the Clubhouse, you can actually get a JoeBlogs-TJOB bundle here and save 25%.

You can also get a Molly Knight-TJOB bundle!

Anyway, Molly and I are so pumped about all this. So are Sarah and Kathleen, our producers and creatives. So is our musical director, Matt the Electrician, whose joyful songs alone make this worth a listen. A lot of work and thought has gone into turning The Joy of Baseball into something really special, and, of course, we are only just beginning.

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OK, let’s talk about that fourth out play: You can see it here starting at 10:57:

Here’s the situation, best I can understand it: Seventh inning, Red Sox down 2-0 to Toronto, they have Connor Wong on first and Anthony Seigler on third with one out. I don’t have any idea why Anthony Seigler spells his name E before I since his name doesn’t start with a C, but we don’t have time to go into that right now.

No, what we need to say right now is that even though there was only one out, they had two outs listed on the scoreboard and the players on the field — both teams — seemed pretty certain that there were two outs. Why? I’m guessing, but on the previous play Nick Sogard smashed a line drive to first and, at first, it looked like Vladdy Jr. caught it out of the air. He then fired to second where, at least for an instant, it looked like he’d doubled off the Red Sox runner.

But Vladdy didn’t actually catch the ball. So the throw to first didn’t double off anyone — it was just a one-out forceout. That left runners on first and third with one out.

On the next play, Cedanne Rafaela lofted an easy fly ball to center. Brett Bateman pulled it in and all at once a bunch of things became clear:

Thing 1: Bateman thought there were two outs because he caught the ball in a leisurely way, even though Seigler on third was likely to tag up.

Thing 2: Seigler, on third base, thought there were two outs, so he didn’t tag up — he just jogged home.

Thing 3: Wong, on first base, thought there were two outs, so he just ran to second and even rounded the bag and headed for third.

Thing 4: The Blue Jays, finally realizing that there were not two outs, threw to first to double off Wong.

Thing 5: This is key: The Blue Jays jogged off the field because the inning was over. Why is this key? Because if they had not jogged off the field, they could have actually appealed the play at third and gotten Seigler, even though the third out had been recorded.

That’s the beloved fourth-out rule.

It’s Rule 5.09(c): “Appeal plays may require an umpire to recognize an apparent ‘fourth out.’ If the third out is made during a play in which an appeal play is sustained on another runner, the appeal play decision takes precedence in determining the out.”

But here’s the thing: In order to appeal the play at third, the Blue Jays had to stay on the field. Once they’d crossed the third base line, they were no longer allowed to appeal the tag-up play at third. And because Seigler scored before Wong was ruled out, the run counted — even though Seigler scored on an illegal non-tag.

The good folks at MLB.com found the last time a play like this happened. It was April 12, 2009, in a Dodgers-Diamondbacks game, and it was — if possible — even weirder. In this case, there were runners on second and third with one out, and everybody KNEW that there was only one out. Randy Wolf was hitting for Los Angeles, and he poked a line drive back to Dan Haren, who grabbed it and threw to second, where the Dodgers calmly doubled off the runner. Then they ran off the field.

But the Dodgers’ Andre Ethier had taken off with the pitch, and he scored BEFORE the Dodgers tagged out Juan Pierre to end the inning.

I mean, how can you not be romantic about baseball?