Diverting Puns

But I didn't want to cause a Seine.

Divertity

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?

I don't know if this necessarily qualifies as a "dad joke" as much as a "dad move" but when I was younger, about 10 or 11, I was in the backyard with my dad on a summer afternoon. The sun was going down and I nonchalantly said, "I wonder what time it is..." He looked up towards the sun and pointed with his left hand, causing me to look with him. He answered, "Oh, about 5:36." I was in awe that he could be so exact but I still thought it was a guess, so I ran inside to check the clock in the kitchen. Sure enough, it read 5:36. I was amazed but my dad refused to tell me his secret. He just kept saying he just knew based on the sun, and that it was "magic", every time I asked.

I am now 24. And as I was sitting outside the other day, watching the sunset, I thought back to this, still amazed he did it. Then, it clicked. He was wearing a watch on his right wrist, which he looked at when he diverted my attention to looking at the sun. I hope to be like him one day...

tl;dr I thought my dad could tell time by looking at the sun. He looked at a watch when I wasn't looking.