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Mike and Mike and ground-rule doubles
We shall use the above video as a teaching opportunity about baseball, specifically about the most repeated, redundant, recurring mistake made about the game.
The video comes from today’s White House tee ball game, which, as usual was a joyful activity involving kids who are probably too young to realize how cool it is to play tee ball on the South Lawn.
But that’s not the point. The point is about adults, specifically the ones invited to do the play-by-play. On the video you will hear ESPN’s Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic discuss the most impressive hit of the day, a solid line drive by six-year-old Blake Money of North Port, Florida, who lined a one-hopper over the center field fence.
Mike and Mike call it a “ground-rule double.” It is not a ground-rule double. It is a double because the rules of baseball, specifically rule 6.09, say it’s always a double when “a fair ball, after touching the ground, bounds into the stands.”
That’s a book rule, applicable in all circumstances, as opposed to a ground rule enacted to deal with specific conditions at a specific ballpark.
And you can look it up.
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