The Pirates and Orioles Kept Playing After the Umpires Left
By Kyle Koster
Spring training is sort of like Who's Line Is It Anyway in that everything is made up and the points don't matter. If you needed a reminder of that, the Baltimore Orioles and Pittsburgh Pirates played the bottom of the ninth of their scheduled game today even though the Pirates had already technically won and the umpiring crew was lathering up in the showers having completed their work.
Playing for love of the game. Somewhere a thousand gruff coaches and travel baseball dads are locking arms and having a good cry.
omg the Pirates and Orioles wanted to play a bottom of the 9th despite the Pirates leading 7-4 at home but the umpires just left after the top half thinking the game was over so now they are playing without them pic.twitter.com/kWotCYsJBZ
— Céspedes Family BBQ (@CespedesBBQ) February 28, 2023
Well if you hate the pitch clock and umpires… the @Pirates and @Orioles are currently playing a half inning after the game ended without either of those things in effect. It’s like sandlot baseball, no score, no stats or music. Just ball. pic.twitter.com/aNKbak9V8J
— BenPokorny (@BenPokorny) February 28, 2023
The Pirates and Orioles just played (unofficially) a full half-inning of baseball without any umpires pic.twitter.com/3tf5GTQ7ez
— Stark Raving Sports (@StarkRaveSports) February 28, 2023
The Orioles and Pirates just played the last inning of their Spring Training game without any umpires. pic.twitter.com/OM4wp4rYq2
— MLB Metrics (@MLBMetrics) February 28, 2023
It appears the teams were able to work through things without an incident. Sportsmanship! So much to like.
The pressing question I have here is the legality of doing any rebroadcast, retransmission, or account of this game, without the express written consent of Major League Baseball. Because, by definition, the game was over. This was something else. Sandlot ball. With Big Leaguers and those who dream of being a Big Leaguer come September.