I was watching Xavier@Louisville last night (Monday, Feb 21 - you can replay this using the ESPN app) when an interesting event occurred:
Bottom seventh, based loaded, one out. Louisville batter hits a fly ball to right center, R3 correctly returns to bag to tag, R2 goes toward 3B (I probably would have returned to 2B to tag but perhaps the ball looked more shallow than it was), and R1 advances all the way (almost all the way as you'll see) to second.
Ball is caught.
R3 advances home and scores, R2 returns to second, and R1 returns to first. Louisville team and crowd cheers--that is, until the umpire crew calls SOMEONE out (I'm assuming on appeal) and Xavier sprint off the field as Louisville coaches, team and crowd go nuts.
Announcers are confused and initially suggest that perhaps R1 ran past R2. In the meantime the headsets come on and we go to video replay. The announcers then appear to know what's going on (don't know whether they are guessing or got word from someone on the field) and suggest R2 was called out because he touched 2B before going back to tag 1B.
Huh????!!!!
So either I don't know baseball rules or the announcers are crazy. For now, unless I hear otherwise, I'll assume the latter. My guess is the umpires actually called R3 out for leaving early and were reviewing the video on THAT.
Instead the announcers were reviewing (and showing the slow-mo replay) whether R2 had ever actually touched 2B--and he had NOT. They therefore said that the out call should be overturned because he had never touched 2B. Huh???!!!
Now I certainly know that if he had advanced beyond second (and touched it) he would have to re-touch second on his way back to first. Do I not know the rules? Or are the announcers crazy?
Please help!