Baseball’s rule book has a lot of things in it that almost never come up in a normal game, but when they do, the mass confusion can be a rather hysterical sight to see. Enter the Dodgers’ Opening Day game with the Rockies on Thursday, in which Cody Bellinger pulled off one of the strangest feats you’ll ever see on the baseball diamond.
With Justin Turner on first, the Dodger star launched a home run into left center field that just got over the glove of the Rockies left fielder Raimel Tapia. However, because of the way Tapia came back into play looking like he may have caught the ball, Turner got spooked as he rounded second and ran back to first to avoid getting doubled up, passing Bellinger in the process. By rule, Bellinger, the man who had hit what should’ve been a two-run home run, was out, and only Turner could round the bases and score.
Cody Bellinger Fly Out Homer pic.twitter.com/yNlXsfsq21
— Mad Choriyama (@MadChoriyama) April 1, 2021
It is one of the weirdest situations you’ll ever see in a baseball game, but that is indeed the rule. You cannot pass someone on the basepath, and while in this case it wasn’t Bellinger’s fault, he was called out and rather than taking a 2-0 lead in the third inning, the Dodgers had to settle for a 1-0 advantage thanks to a base-running disaster. The official scoring ended up being the world’s longest RBI single.