Big Ten Network
- Northwestern baseball won its Opening Day game in wild fashion on Sunday.
- As the strange scenario played out, the announcer on the call was losing his mind and it was awesome.
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Northwestern baseball is not very good this year, but the Wildcats won their first home game of the year on Sunday. How it went down is absolutely bizarre and wildly exhilarating.
Baseball is weird, but that’s what makes it fun.
Hosting St. Thomas, which is playing its first baseball season on the D-1 level, Northwestern fell behind 2-1 in the sixth inning and stayed down until the bottom of the ninth. First, an RBI single tied the game.
Then, after loading the bases on a pair of errors committed by the Tommies, Andrew Pinkston stepped into the box with one out. He took the first two pitches for strikes and set up an 0-2 count.
What happened next is so strange. St. Thomas’ pitcher balked.
To put it simply, if a pitcher makes any kind of motion that mimics his normal delivery, and then stops the motion before releasing the pitch — that is a balk. As per the rules, when a balk occurs, any runners on base are awarded the next base.
Thus, when the Tommies pitcher balked, a decision for which he disagreed, the Wildcats on base advanced to the next base. For the runner on third, that was home.
Northwestern won 3-2 on a walk-off balk and the broadcast announcer’s call was electric. Take a look:
𝘽𝘼𝙇𝙆 𝙏𝙃𝙄𝙎 𝙒𝘼𝙔
The magic of college baseball ✨#GoCats | @d1baseball | @11point7 pic.twitter.com/Ukqo5IrzV9
— Northwestern Baseball (@NUCatsBaseball) March 13, 2022