Baseball Pitching Puns

Two old guys, Abe and Sol, are sitting on a park bench feeding pigeons and talking about baseball, like they do every day. Abe turns to Sol and says, "Do you think there's baseball in heaven?"

Sol thinks about it for a minute and replies, "I dunno. But let's make a deal: if I die first, I'll come back and tell you if there's baseball in heaven, and if you die first, you do the same."

They shake on it and sadly, a few months later, poor Abe passes on.

One day soon afterward, Sol is sitting there feeding the pigeons by himself when he hears a voice whisper, "Sol... Sol..."

Sol responds, "Abe! Is that you?"

"Yes it is, Sol," whispers Abe's ghost.

Sol, still amazed, asks, "So, is there baseball in heaven?"

"Well," says Abe, "I've got good news and bad news."

"Gimme the good news first," says Sol.

Abe says, "Well... there is baseball in heaven."

Sol says, "That's great! What news could be bad enough to ruin that!?"

Abe sighs and whispers, "You're pitching on Friday."

I have a bunch of stupid baseball questions. I know most of the rules, I just want to make sure I have all my bases covered.

• Imagine there’s a fan of the team that is currently fielding in the stands, and that said fan has a prosthetic arm. The batter hits a pitch and sends it on a home-run trajectory into the stands. If the fan in the stands throws his arm at the ball and diverts it back in the field of play, can they rightfully say that they were just “lending the team a hand” by stopping the home run?

• Consider the exact opposite situation - the fan’s team is at bat and the batter hits a fly ball to the outfield. If Elastagirl from the Incredibles just happened to be the fan in question, can she spring into action and catch the ball before the outfielder has the chance to?

• Now, imagine I smuggled a water gun into the stadium on a particularly hot day, and I managed to squirt sticky black liquid onto the batter. Does that mean he can take a walk since he was “hit by pitch”?

• Consider the freak circumstance where a ball in motion collides with a bird, causing it to spiral in its descent and eventually collide in turn with an umpire. Can the player responsible for the ball’s motion be ejected from the game due to repeatedly flipping the bird at an umpire?

• Can a losing team sub out their man on the mound with a large quantity of beer to prolong the game? There’d still be a pitcher on the mound!

• If a pitcher throws a slider into the strike zone and the batter doesn’t swing, should the umpire consider it a strike, a ball, or the catcher’s dinner?