Tag: what is a catch

Umpires awarded weirdest HR after Giants prospect dropped ball over the fence despite making the catch

Somehow, it was the right call.

The NFL struggles with the concept every season: What is a catch? Plays that certainly look like catches are ruled incomplete. Simply put, nobody knows what a catch is. Baseball, though, shouldn’t have that problem.

But during Sunday’s minor league game between Triple-A clubs Sacramento River Cats (Giants) and Oklahoma City Dodgers, we saw a quirk of baseball’s catch rules come into play in a huge way.

With no outs in the fourth inning and nobody on, the Dodgers’ Devin Mann hit a deep fly ball to center field that appeared to be caught on the run in the warning track by Bryce Johnson. It was undeniable: Johnson had the ball in his glove.

Yet, Johnson’s momentum carried him to the wall. He leaped towards the fence to slow himself down or possibly add some showmanship to the catch. But as he did that, he lost the ball and dropped it on the other side of the wall. Umpires ruled the play as a home run.

While Johnson took several steps after catching the ball, baseball requires the fielder to either maintain possession or voluntarily release the ball. The umpires thought that Johnson did neither of those as he accidentally dropped the ball while still in the process of completing the entire sequence.

The broadcast seemed to think that the umpires missed the call, but in the scope of the rules, it was correct. Either way, it was one of the stranger home runs we’ll ever see.

Replay overturned Ja’Marr Chase’s sensational TD catch and NFL fans couldn’t agree about that call

Was that a catch?

Despite the NFL’s recent efforts to simplify what constitutes a catch, there never seems to be a consensus on what actually is a catch. Ja’Marr Chase was the latest player to fall victim to the ever-changing, inconsistent application of that rule.

During Sunday’s AFC divisional round matchup between the Bengals and Bills, it appeared that Chase made a phenomenal touchdown catch at the back of the end zone through all the snow at Highmark Stadium.

While Chase did get both feet in bounds, the ball did appear to be moving through the final process of “completing the catch.” The play was reviewed, and the refs overturned the catch, calling it incomplete. The Bengals settled for a field goal.

Now, it really did look like the ball was moving. But did Chase secure possession long enough for it to be a touchdown? It’s tough to say. The call on the field being touchdown probably should have been enough to have the play stand (even if it looked incomplete).

Still, fans could not agree at all about the overturn.