Russell Martin, Dale Scott, Aaron Sanchez discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
It was not the decisive play in that game as it turned out, although it seemed significant at the time, but just everything was wild in that inning, of course. We did a draft at podcast draft of our favorite moments from an oral history. I did. I wrote an immediate fake oral history of that game, and that was the highlight, I think, just for the weirdness of it. So yeah, Russell Martin catcher throwing back to Aaron Sanchez in the throat just deflected off of the batter shin tzu choose hand as he was holding his bet and that it just trickles down the third baseline. And Rugnetta door scores, right? And that was very significant at the time. It was like a three two rangers lead, right? And the great thing about that was that while Russell Martin said it had never happened in his life before, so he didn't know what to do. And played umpire Dale Scott. Oh yeah. Has been on effectively wild and talked about this play with us. He instantly did not know what to do and he made the incorrect call and then reversed himself because Jeff bannister, the rangers manager who I guess was the only person who had ever seen something like this before because he personally had been involved in it as a minor league catcher apparently. It had happened. And so he knew the rules shin su Chu didn't know the rule or what to do or anything. And the empire's got together and because she was in the batter's box when the throw hit the bat, then it's not interference. So initially it was the incorrect call, basically. So the run counted after initially being sent back to the base. This is just the weirdest weirdest thing. It's the weirdest thing, and the reason that I wanted to orchestrate an entire podcast episode. To get to it, is that when I don't remember why, but I was trying to think of what the ultimate moment, or example of this is. And I immediately thought of it. Nothing else came to mind, except this. And I don't know why. It seems so obviously the right answer. Why? I guess probably we were all like on Twitter together at that point. So maybe it was the collective social media aspect of it. So we were all experiencing it together even if we weren't at the park and I guess it also just compounded everything else that was happening and that came in in that inning, so it was kind of like it took it over the line and to total absurdity maybe. I don't remember the full sequence of events. But maybe it was part of a larger Tapestry. So I guess that was it too. Yeah. Have you read the three body problem? Yeah, the first book I read. Okay, so the aliens, you know, they send these photons to earth to mess up earth's science by disrupting the particles in the particle accelerator. This isn't going to be a very good example. But I want to see where it's going now. Like I just kind of, you know, like so you're kind of imagining this photon that can cause things to move chaotically and I feel like when my brain tries to think of something in baseball I've never seen before, the first thing it tries to do is imagine a baseball moving in the least predictable direction. Like in the most chaotic, like the ball specifically. And I think that's why this one, this is my archetype of the ball moving in an unpredictable direction. It just was not supposed to go that direction. It's the most routine throw you ever see because back to the picture. You couldn't even make enough sense of it to be shot. I mean, it made sense that Dale Scott comes out and calls foul, and that's what you, that's, I guess what you think must something has gone foul. But in fact, it was a live ball moving in a wrong direction. I don't know. Yeah, I love that play. And I have a hard time, I mean, is it that? Crazy? I guess it's not that crazy, but the stakes, the fact that it was that inning, that game. Yeah. All right. So that's yours too. That was mine too. Okay. Okay. The last question, the last question I had for you both is what is something that you have never seen before that you hope or that you might see the next time you go to a ballpark. Ben you go. Okay, so I tried to steer away from maybe the most obvious ones, even though the most obvious ones probably would be the most exciting, right? Because you can always just add one, just tack one more of whatever the record is for doing that thing in a game, whether it's someone hitting 5 homers or your favorite the 21 strikeout game. So those would probably top whatever I'm about to say. It's just that's, I guess, the most obvious one. So I agree, those would be great and exciting. But I think what came to mind is, well, this probably couldn't happen. It's probably so unlikely that it could happen or would happen that it's beyond the realm of possibility. But remember when we had our debates about minimum emitting and you wanted to call a three pitch inning a minimum inning? I will never forget it. Partly because this song is still in my head. Right. Yeah. And make objected to the term, I think partly on that basis, but also, I think one of our objections was that it's not technically a minimum inning, right? It is probably the minimum inning that will happen, but it is not the minimum ending that could happen because you can throw a no pitch inning and you were saying a three pitch inning should be a minimum inning. So I'd like to see a no pitch inning or a one pitch inning or something, which can happen, of course. You could intentionally walk someone. You could have repeated pitch clock violations and then you could pick them off. You could do the tippy Martinez, except throwing no pitches, right? So I don't know if pickoffs will be more likely with the new rules this year or whatever. But again, why would that happen? Why would you continue to intentionally walk people? It just doesn't seem like there's any particular reason for that to happen. Unless you were trying to do this. So barring that, I was thinking maybe just a really long extra inning game just to spite the zombie runner and Sam, I don't know if you're still as pro. Zombie runner as you were when it first started, I am still as staunchly against, if not more so. So that 16 inning Dodgers Padres game in 2021 that kept going and just defied the gravity of the zombie runner was really fun and I would just like to thumb my nose at the rule and rob Manfred by just having a game go on for an extraordinarily long time. So you wouldn't get like the longest extra in game ever or anything, but the longest extra inning game under these conditions just to thwart the intention of the rule to prevent that sort of thing from happening. I guess the one benefit of the zombie runner or one of them is that when it doesn't work as intended, then it's more fun, right? Because you used to think, not that much of like a 14 inning game. You know it would take more than that to really get into it if you're sort of a sicko about long extra in games, but now once you get to like 13 or something, now it's sort of special because it's so rare for that to happen. So if we were to exceed 16 and head toward 20 and just defy all probability despite the zombie, I would very much enjoy that. I like how many times you brought up rob Manfred's mood. You think he's just gonna be like so owned in this situation? Yeah, just ranting just in tears. Yeah, I'd like to imagine that. I'd also like to see strategy happen, you know, our old strategy at the mid plate appearance pitching change, which just like, it hasn't