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Ad-free: MLB has a rule for one specific plant | Weird Rules
🕑 Added 2025-08-15 16:00:25 +0000 UTCImagine this.
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 and other similarly targeted situations.
Enjoy our latest Weird Rules!
Comments
Clayton Hurdle
Did we just figure out where Jimmy Hoffa ended up after all these years? Fantastic vid Joe and Seth. And shoutout the animators too, this one was fun to watch.
buoy
In Worcester, the AAA affiliate of the Red Sox (called the Woo Sox) play right next to an actual elevated train station so games get interrupted by the train coming by above the left field wall semi frequently. It's awesome.
Daniel Brandes
One of my favourites is old tiger stadium with the flag pole that was in play in dead center field. A couple feet in from of the outfield wall.
Hope Carrane
Re: living things at ballparks-there’s a stingray pool at Tropicana Field where the Rays play. They have netting there so balls don’t splash into the pool but I want to say the location of the pool itself is outside the posts and foul territory.
Secret Base
realizing the downside of us removing the sponsored elements was that killed the trivia card saying "oh wait seth's thinking of where the astros play"
Jeremy Spangler
The Astros do currently have a train that runs along their upper left field wall for player intros and home runs. When the facility was called Minute Maid Park, the train car held enormous fake oranges; since the facility was renamed this year, they're now baseballs. Also, the NFL did adopt one ground rule of sorts, since the league had to accommodate punts hitting the scoreboard at JerryWorld. If a kick nails the board, it results in a do-over, which is probably both the most fair and the most boring way to address the situation.
Richard Angle
There should be a giant butt in the outfield somewhere, and if the ball gets stuck in the butthole, the batter gets a ground rule double, and we hear a soundbite of a man screaming. Also the hole should be filled with mud, so if the ball comes out, it’s caked full of brown sludge.
Richard Angle
There absolutely has to be drugs in that ivy. Imagining an outfielder sticking his hand in there and getting poked by a needle.
Richard Angle
I thought of the baseball scene from Brewster’s Millions.
Jake F
Joe's question about a train track running around a stadium reminds me about my hometown's low A baseball team that has two separate train tracks running along each side of the stadium. It's not a question of if a train will interrupt the game, but how many
Justin Bacchi
I was just going down this rabbit hole a couple weeks ago and I'm a little disappointed y'all didn't bring up joe pepitone, who claims that cubs fans would throw him bags of cocaine and he would hide them in the ivy and go back for them after the game
Andrew Ross
There's a a Pesäpallo (Finnish baseball) field that has a river in play. No ground rules, either -- if the ball winds up in the river, you better go find it.
Conlan Webster
Thank you all for bringing back Weird Rules! You have no idea how happy this series makes me.
Halycon404
Feature: A park designed to funnel ALL the water onto the field on rain days. Rule: Games cannot be canceled for rain. I want kids playing backyard baseball levels of chaos at an MLB game. If I got my rules right. A homerun off a bunt without an error happening is technically possible if a waterlogged ball sinks underwater and nobody can find it in time.
William Sniegowski
I want to see an oversized pinball machine somewhere on the field of play in a hard-to-reach spot where if the ball gets hit into the pinball machine, one lucky fan gets to control the machine and runs will be scored based upon how well the fan plays. If the fan happens to beat the all-time high score, it's an automatic win for the team that hit the ball.
PerfectlyAdequate
Chase Utley mentioned???
hotdog7
Gimme a plinko board on the green monster and if the ball bounces over to the corner its a home run
Sbzzz
hey guys, im loving the weird rules and i appreciate yall taking the time to put subtitles on them! but on these ad free versions the subtitles still have the ad break in them and it causes desync for the rest of the video. just hoping you could fix it xoxo
