Pirates and Orioles play refereeless baseball for unnecessary 9th place finish
The Baltimore Orioles and Pittsburgh Pirates are living the dream on Tuesday: baseball without a referee.
Well, actually, baseball would probably be more of a nightmare without an umpire, but the two teams had to come due after their umpire team left the ball game when the home team, the Pirates, finished in ninth place and led 7-4.
Under normal baseball rules, the game would be over and the Pirates would start shaking hands, but since this is spring training, the two teams wanted to keep playing to give their players as much time on the field as possible. The result was a half-inning of teams calling their own balls, strikes, and outs, sandlot style:
Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said after the game they had league approval to continue playing, per Andy Kostka of The Baltimore Banners:
“We were told by the league that we could play it by the umpires and pitch the bottom half of the ninth inning and I think [umpire] Chad Fairchild felt we couldn’t.”
As far as MLB and their website are concerned, the game ended after the ninth-place top, giving the Pirates a 7-4 win and right-hander David Bednar the win.
As far as MLB and their website are concerned, the game ended after the ninth-place top, giving the Pirates a 7-4 win and right-hander David Bednar the win. It might at least have been refreshing to play without the pressure of pitch clock that was widely felt during this year’s spring practice.
https://sports.yahoo.com/spring-training-pirates-and-orioles-play-umpire-less-baseball-for-needless-bottom-of-the-9th-232222551.html?src=rss Pirates and Orioles play refereeless baseball for unnecessary 9th place finish
