Baseball may be America’s favorite pastime, but it can also be America’s most head-scratching one.
Sometimes, its niche rules can be so hard to understand that they can even throw the umpires for a little bit of a loop, and that’s exactly what happened in the Little League World Series during Saturday’s matchup between Europe-Africa (Bologna, Italy) and Australia (Brisbane).
In what was a wild sequence, the Italian team hit a fly ball that landed just inside the first-base line before it was retrieved by a fielder for Australia. Fair ball, right? The umpires certainly thought so, and Australia took advantage by turning it into a triple play to apparently end the frame.
a little bit of chaos! bases loaded, no outs. The ump called this a foul ball and then Team Australia turned a triple play to get out of it. Then they reviewed it and got it right, foul ball. pic.twitter.com/32vjDYiku5
— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) August 20, 2022
But not so fast.
Though the call on the field was originally fair, the Australian fielder is clearly standing with two feet in foul territory when the ball bounces into his glove. By rule, that should be called foul.
The umpires ultimately got it right — I think — and wiped the triple play off the board for Australia. Italy went on to win the elimination game by a score of 12-7.
But ultimately, this just proved to be a very confusing play, even for the officials, and users on Twitter are still debating whether the umpires should’ve signaled for an infield fly during the original fair call.
So it seems no one can even fully agree on how the rules should be applied in this situation. Ah, baseball.
