Keith,
In today's column, George Will mentions two baseball rules that I have never even heard of (paragraphs 3 and 4).
You are much more knowledgeable about baseball than I am. Do you know these rules? How often are they invoked? Have you ever been at a game where one of these rules was invoked?
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)
P.S. I once witnessed a triple play, which must be rare. It was at a Buffalo Bisons game.
Note from KBJ: Thanks for the link, Mark. I have never heard of those rules, much less seen them invoked. The second rule makes eminent sense. By the way, the final paragraph of Will's column is music:
Sport—strenuous exertion structured and restrained by rules—replicates the challenges of political freedom. Umpires, baseball’s judicial branch, embody what any society always needs and what America, in its current financial disarray, craves—regulated striving that, by preventing ordered competition from descending into chaos, enables excellence to prevail.
The man can write.
Note 2 from KBJ: I've never seen a triple play in person, but I was in Arlington Stadium when Nolan Ryan was thrown out of a game for the only time in his long career. I was also present when Babe Ruth hit his 714th home run.
