One of baseball’s most endearing quirks is that not all ballparks have the same dimensions. While it seems preposterous to think of a basketball court with hoops of differing heights, or a football field that’s 130 yards long, baseball stadiums are like snowflakes: no two are alike.
In the case of the Giants’ Oracle Park, one of the stadium’s defining features are its deep and angular outfield fences, which jut out in different directions like a Picasso Cubist painting. While aesthetically pleasing to some, that setup can cause havoc on outfielders simply trying to defend their position. And, in the case of Rays outfielder Luke Raley’s sixth-inning at-bat on Wednesday, can burn the home team in the process.
Raley crushed a ball to right-center field that took an absurd carom off the wall—and actually rode atop the fence for a bit—turning the San Francisco outfield into the site of a mad dash and ultimately fruitless chase, allowing Raley to circle the bases for an inside-the-park homer.
Luke Raley was motoring for the INSIDE-THE-PARK HR 🔥
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) August 16, 2023
(via @MLB)pic.twitter.com/fhyO1IBGpf
The moment brings to mind the famous inside-the-park home run that Ichiro Suzuki hit at the 2007 All-Star Game in San Francisco, though this one was perhaps even more unusual given how the ball seemingly defied physics by not skipping over the center field fence.
Let this latest instance be a lesson to any outfielders that find themselves roaming the grass at Oracle Park: Expect the unexpected.
