Thursday, April 29, 2004

Foul, then fair
They say that at every baseball game, you will see something you've never seen before. This happened last night at Kauffman Stadium during the Royals/Rangers game.

It was the bottom of the fifth, the Royals were down 1-0. Two were on base, and Harvey was up to bat. He pulled a ball down the left field line that cleared the wall for an apparent homerun. Harvey circled bases when the third base umpired ruled the hit a homerun. The umpires then met to discuss the call, and overruled the call and ruled the hit a foul ball. Apparently, replays showed the ball passing just to the left of the foul pole, so the call was correct.

Harvey returned to the batters box, and Kenny Rogers and his catcher prepared to pitch to him again. They couldn't agree on a pitch, and then the Rangers' pitching coach Oral Herschiser came to the mound. The three met for a moment and agreed on a strategy for pitching to Harvey. The pitch came in, and Harvey promptly deposited it into the left field bullpen, clearly a fair ball and a three run homerun. That makes two "homeruns" on two consecutive pitches by the same batter. It's a crazy game.

Fortunately, the Royals pulled off a 5-3 victory. They'll play an afternoon getaway game today, so hopefully the Royals can build some momentum.

No comments: