Rules: Politics, baseball

By Tom Haughey

When rules are ignored or unevenly applied in baseball, fans become furious. Take, for example, what happened in the fifth inning of the deciding post-season game between the Chicago Cubs and the Washington Nationals. Catcher Matt Wieters was behind the plate. There were two outs. Javier Baez was batting. Baez swung and missed a ball in the dirt for strike three (which should have ended the inning). Baez, however, spun around while swinging and during his follow-through hit catcher Wieters in the head with his bat. The ball bounced past Wieters to the backstop. Matt shook off the blow, retrieved the ball and threw wildly to first in an effort to put out the running Baez. The ball ended up in right field and two runs scored (including what proved to be the winning run for the Cubs).

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