Change

Things certainly have changed here.

For one, my husband used to hide the remote so I couldn't watch Bravo. He now tells me to "turn that sh-- off," when I tune into NESN.

And then tonight he answered a baseball question and followed it with "I could be wrong about that."  (Or did he say "don't quote me on that?" Whoops, sorry Dave!)

What was the question that stumped the stumper?

Adrian Beltre stepped on first at the exact microsecond Tampa Bay's first baseman touched the base with ball in hand. Beltre was called out. Naively perhaps, I claimed he should have been safe. Tie goes to the runner, right?


According to Dave - just don't quote him - tie goes to the runner isn't an official rule. Apparently someone always gets to the base first, and the officials can always tell, or at least make a judgement, about who it is. To get to the bottom of this I had to turn to google.

The wording of the official rule is, "a batter is out when, after he hits a fair ball, he or first base is tagged before he touches first base." Notice it doesn't say before or at the same time he touches first base. Tie goes to the runner may not be the official wording of the rule, but it seems like a pretty fair restatement of the rule.

Speaking of baseball rules, I need someone to explain what just happened with Eric Patterson and Victor Martinez. Patterson began running home, then turned around to tag up but Martinez was already there. The thirdbaseman tagged Martinez and Patterson... I think that if Patterson had remained on base he would have been safe, but instead he started walking off the field. He was then tagged out.

Too bad bluehats are no longer watching the Sox. I could really use some help with that one.

Hey, I am still learning new baseball rules, so maybe not EVERYTHING has changed.