You’ve heard it before, but it remains as true as ever: The great thing about baseball is you might see something you’ve never seen before.
That is true even when the games don’t technically matter. It happened on Monday night at Oracle Park in an exhibition between the Giants and Athletics, when a Balldude down the left-field line acted as a 10th defensive player for San Francisco.
Sitting on his stool near the tarp, the Balldude made a fantastic basket catch, just before Oakland left fielder Conner Capel came sliding in and took the ball from him with his barehand. Because the Balldude interference was intentional, the ball was ruled dead. Had it been unintentional, it would have been ruled an out.
The A’s challenged, which makes sense because it’s unlikely any of them had seen such a play. The ruling on the field was upheld, and the Balldude gave his favorite team a chance to keep hitting.