You are Chase Utley, second baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies. You woke up today in Chicago and made your way to Wrigley Field to play a game that you’ve intimately known for decades.
The rules have stayed the same. The equipment has remained consistent through the years. You step up to home plate with a bat in your hand. The pitcher hurls a ball your way. A ball. Singular. The only ball ever involved in every game you’ve taken part in. That lone ball controls your fate. Hit it well and you’ve succeeded. Hit it poorly and you can fail. But that is the only ball that matters. You manage to make sound contact, sending the ball flying towards the wall and into no-man’s land as the outfielders scurry to slow down your progress.
But before they manage to reach the ball, something happens. Something new. Something unknown.
Another ball. A second baseball. A twin to the ball you just smashed appears. It plops out on the ground, signaling to the world its arrival… or its return?
This can only happen in one place, because of one plant, and therefore has one very specific rule that MLB has had to introduce to handle this very situation.
