It was great to win the Cards series on Monday night. And, in the course of it I learned a new baseball rule too.
It turns out a ground rule double usually isn't a ground rule double.
MLB rules say a hit that goes out of play after a bounce in fair territory is an automatic double. People often mistakenly call these "ground rule doubles," but that moniker is for when an ump awards two bases to the baserunners because a ball became unplayable.
Ground rule doubles aren't necessarily because the ball bounced out. It could have smashed into an unthrowable shape, or become stuck in a fence, or simply wriggled into the ivy at Wrigley Field to the dismay of Felix Pie.
The point is, it's an umps call - not the automatic two bases that come on a bounce-out.
Semantics, semantics. Ah, another reason to love baseball.
It's game day again today...more to come.
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