An interesting play occurred in a game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Los Angeles Angels on 2006 April 17 at Camden Yards. In the bottom of the second inning, Miguel Tejada hit a single to the shortstop area. Jay Gibbons flied out to the center fielder Darin Erstad. The next batter up was Javy Lopez. Lopez hit a long fly ball way out into center field, and Erstad reached up to try to pick up the ball.
Tejada and Lopez looked all over the place. They looked at and listened to the umpire's call, as to whether it was an out, a long in-the-ballpark hit, or a home run. They also looked at Erstad to see which it was. Erstad fell to the ground. Apparently Tejada heard the third base umpire say "out" and assumed the ball was caught. So he went back to first base. Apparently Lopez thought it was a home run and kept on running. He was called out for passing Tejada on the base paths. The umpires and scorers declared the play a single and an out. Apparently the ball just barely left the ballpark.
How did this happen? This is what Lopez said afterwards: "'Me and Tejada were looking at the umpire the whole time, wondering what kind of call he was going to make. We were wondering if the ball was out or (Erstad) got it in his glove. One umpire called an out, so obviously Tejada went back to first base. Then the other umpire said the ball was out. But by the time he made the call, I had already passed Tejada.''
Note what he says. He says "The ball went out." With all the screaming and commotion at a typical major league baseball game, the words may not all have been heard. Perhaps Lopez heard "out". That is evidently what happened, for Lopez said, "One umpire called an out." Tejada must have heard it that way, for he retreated to first base. On a fly out, runners must hold to their bases and if they don't get back to them in time before the ball or a tag does, they're out. Lopez must have heard differently. He said, "Then the other umpire said the ball was out." That immediately confronted Lopez with a contradiction. If the ball is out of the ball park, it is a home run, and there can be no outs with an ordinary home run. He assumed the ball was out of the ballpark and kept on running. Thereby he passed Tejada and was called out for passing another runner. Why didn't he see Tejada? Well maybe he was concentrating on Erstad and what the umpires were saying.
The whole problem arose because the word "out" was ambiguous. One meaning of "out" says the item was not in the set or the scene of discussion. For example, "The young man was out of the house.", meaning that he was somewhere else other than in the house. That's the meaning in "the ball is out", meaning out of the ballpark. The other meaning is the baseball meaning, which says that a player or the base he is heading to has been tagged and therefore he must leave the base paths and a point called an "out" is recorded; three of these end an inning. That is what Tejada thought the umpire meant when he said "out".
I think this one was the umpires' fault. I think Lopez should have been credited with a home run. This is because I believe that umpires should never say the word "out" unless they mean a baseball out. They should never say the ball is out of the fair playing area, or out of the ballpark, or out of anything. They should not even say "Power is out." Who knows? Maybe there is a player named "Power" or "Powell" (remember Boog) on one of the teams. If there is a power outage, they should say that the ballpark has no power. They should also say that balls are foul, or that they have left the ballpark. Anything except saying they are out. For if they do, they could be creating an out that should not have been an out at all.
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