MLB

Your First World Series Controversy: Adrian Beltre’s Foul Ball No-Call

The St. Louis Cardinals took Game 1 of the World Series last night over the Texas Rangers, 3-2. And no big, close game like this could truly be complete without some controversy on the side. In the ninth inning, Game 1 delivered. It didn’t look like much – just the Rangers’ Adrian Beltre grounding out to third base for the second out of the inning – except upon further review, he shouldn’t have been out at all, because Beltre actually fouled the ball off his foot.

As you can see in the video above, Beltre certainly reacted like the ball hit him…then again, baseball players have been known to do some fine acting jobs. Even replay angles weren’t quite conclusive – until Fox turned to its newly-adopted infrared camera technology, which showed the ball left a mark on Beltre’s shoe (barely).

Still, a foul ball’s a foul ball, and Beltre should have had another chance to get on base. And while there’s no guarantee he would have – or that he’d have come around to score and tie the game even if he had – we still wouldn’t be thrilled about this turn of events if we were Rangers fans. Oh well – luck tends to even out over time. The Rangers just have to hope in their case, “over time” means “the next few games.”