A partial list of the ridiculous things that happened during the seventh inning in game five of the ALDS
“Bilbo rushed along the passage, very angry, and altogether bewildered and bewuthered – this was the most awkward Wednesday he ever remembered.”
This throwaway line from The Hobbit has always been one of my favourites, both because of the wonderful made-up word bewuthered, and because I’ve always liked the idea of having a most awkward Wednesday. At least, I did, until it happened to me. After a stressful two days of OCIs, I found myself rushing along an Osgoode hallway, very angry, to a midterm I felt underprepared for, after having watched the Texas Rangers score a go-ahead run on the most bewildering play I’ve ever seen in baseball.
Okay, I fully admit watching a playoff game right before a midterm was not the greatest idea in the world, but no one had any idea how crazy this game would end up being. I look forward to watching reruns of it on lazy Canada Day afternoons. The Canadian Heritage memes have already begun. For now, here’s a brief recap of some of the most memorable moments from what is already being called on sports blogs the inning that broke baseball.
The Rule
Anyone who is a die-hard Blue Jays fan will remember baseball rule 6.03 for the rest of their lives. It states, in short, that if the ball deflects off of the batter or his bat during a throw from the catcher to the pitcher, the ball is in play as long as there was no conscious effort by the batter to interfere with the ball. When Rougned Odor, who had been a thorn in the Jays’ side for the entire series, scored that go-ahead run after Russell Martin’s throw caught the bat of Shin-Soo Choo, all sense of normalcy vanished. The umpire was calling time, Odor was running—no one had any idea what was going on. Roger Angell, a famed baseball essayist who has been writing for The New Yorker since 1944, said that he has been watching baseball since 1930 and has never seen this happen. This moment alone would make the game one for the record books, and it was just the beginning of the descent into madness.
The Protest
Baseball games can officially be played “under protest.” It’s rule 4.07. If you haven’t noticed, baseball has a rule for everything. This happened after the Martin-Choo incident (I refuse to call it Choo-gate), even though Blue Jays manager John Gibbons almost certainly knew that the protest would be unsuccessful. It’s pretty rare, and usually happens due to inclement weather and umps calling games too early. Probably the most famous under protest game is known as the “pine tar incident” involving George Brett in 1983. The protest was successful, and the game was re-started from the moment the protest was called, but what I love about this game is the reasoning for the reversal, which was an incredibly lawyer-like rationalization of whether the “spirit of the rule” was violated (apparently baseball also uses the purposive approach to statutory interpretation). Anyhow, when a game is officially called under protest, the umpire draws a giant P in the air with his finger, which makes me very happy.
The Trash
Not the most glorious moment in the history of Toronto sports. After the go-ahead run was allowed and the game officially under protest, fans started throwing garbage onto the field. This garbage mostly consisted of empty beer cans, and one of these cans ended up spraying beer on a baby. The fan who threw this can was later arrested for mischief according to Toronto police. Later in the seventh the ruckus lead to Edwin Encarnacion pleading with the crowd for some sort of semblance of sanity (would someone please think of the children!), which of course led the Rangers to clearing the benches since they thought he was actually egging the crowd on. Oh, and then two Blue Jays players who weren’t even on the active roster got ejected. This inning is just chock full of throwaway wackiness that would stand out in any normal game.
The Errors
Now we get to the bottom of the seventh. Errors happen in baseball, it’s a part of the game. Three errors in a row is very unusual. Two of those three errors being made by a good defensive shortstop is even weirder. The first of these errors vindicating the very man whose bizzaro accident created the go-ahead run in the top of the inning is entering the realm of make-believe. Being a superstitious folk, sports fans often refer to the gods of the various sport they are watching. For example, one time the football gods decided to make me lose a fantasy season because I was too arrogant. Watching these errors, I wouldn’t have batted an eye if Zeus himself started throwing lightning bolts onto the field. The game felt completely out of the control of human hands. Sports writer Grant Brisbee put it best: “The baseball gods are on peyote and throwing flaming furniture off the roof, and there isn’t a damned thing we can do about it.”
The Flip
Everything about Jose Bautista’s three-run home run was perfect. The intense look on his face before he came up to bat. The swing itself. The stare-down afterwards. And the flip. I was going to go on about the controversy that came up afterwards and how pitcher Sam Dyson said that Bautista should “respect the game” and Bautista said he wasn’t going to apologize for having enthusiasm. I was also going to talk about how the whole “respecting the game” narrative is pretty common in baseball and when it gets thrown around it’s almost invariably by white guys who say it about a player of minority descent and it never fails to piss me off. But it’s okay, because Bautista has made the world a better place. I wouldn’t be surprised if a picture of the flip ended up in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The Mini-Bautista
Nine-year-old Oscar Wood (not to be confused with Quidditch heartthrob Oliver Wood) dons eye black in the shape of a beard for every single Jays game he attends, including ones out of town. Mini-Bautista, as he is known, has been a sort of celebrity in the Blue Jays world before this game, but never more so when he was caught on film mimicking the Bautista home-run in real time. If you want to know what pure unabashed joy looks like, watch the clip. Or tell a bunch of Osgoode students that there’s free pizza somewhere. Wood later said that when the players were celebrating after the game by dousing fans in champagne, he got some in his mouth and “it tasted really bad.” In case you aren’t keeping track, this is the second time on record that a child was sprayed with alcohol in this game.
The Pat
Normally a symbol of camaraderie and sportsmanship, the butt pat is a very common gesture in baseball, and sports in general. It probably happens a hundred times in a game. But at this point it was pretty well-established that nothing is normal anymore. So when Dyson patted Troy Tulowitzki on the backside after he struck out to end the seventh, I simply nodded as the screaming match began and the players started running onto the field. It happened as the broadcast made a feeble attempt to go to commercial break, but they should have known better. This 53-minute inning would not listen to reason.
The Jays/Royals ALCS promises to be a great matchup, as there is no love lost between these two teams. And, the first home game is 19 October, the day of the federal election. So vote, then watch baseball, but don’t expect there to ever be another inning like this again.