Funny baseball story
Score keeping in baseball is weird. BB means base on balls, K means strike out, 1b, 2b, 3b, hr mean single, double, triple and home run respectively… but then shit gets squirrelly… there are 9 players in the field, but there are 10 numbered positions. The number for each position doesn’t really follow a pattern, it’s just on a key in the bottom of the score book. Here are some samples.
ex 1. joey hits the ball to shortstop who throws him out at first, scored as 5-3 or something like that meaning grounded to position 5 thrown out at first.
ex 2. billy is on first and joey hits to third.. third throws billy out at second, joey is safe on first. Joey didn’t get a hit, it gets marked as fielders choice (FC) and billy gets marked with 1b (or bb, or h (hit by pitch)) to first and then 6-4 thrown out at second.
This is all to highlight “CF”, an ad hoc scoring convention we used on Sunday during what might have been the most bizarre double play in the history of baseball.
runners at 1,2,3 (bases loaded).
1 out.
batter hits it deep to center, it’s fielded with out error (not caught).
third base runner goes home, first and second advance one base.
batter rounds first, yells at second to go… second runs to third but the guy on third didn’t move. batter is now on second. guy on second is in a pickle between third and second and the third base runner decides to go for home. pickle diverts to the catcher who runs the guy back to third.
the guy who was in the pickle in on third now though.
the result here is as soon as the guy who started to go home touches third base with another runner on that base, he’s out. pretty straightforward.
except… he didn’t slide to touch third, or graciously accept getting tagged, his momentum knocked the guy on third off the base, but the did touch it at the same time. so guy who tried to go home is out, and the catcher tags the guy who was on third who got knocked off. Double play.
we scored it cluster fuck, or CF for everyone except the batter who was credited with a double (2b).