Morally Gray All The Way 😏

-the first baseman had no reason to chase Baéz, if he just stepped on the bag he was automatically out

-theres two outs, so if hes out, the inning is over. even if the runner on second base gets home, the run doesnt count. its not until hes safe at first that the run scores

-theres no specific rule in baseball about running backwards from first, just that you “cannot retreat to home base” meaning so long as if you dont touch the plate, its fine

-Baéz ran backwards to kill enough to get the run to score, and then stole and extra base on the base on the bad throw

-HE TOOK THE TIME TO UMPIRE HIS OWN PLAY AND CALL SAFE

Javier Báez (the batter, a Chicago Cub, wearing blue) has just hit the ball. His job is now to run around the bases - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, back to where he started (“home”), at which point he will have scored a point. In practice, he will probably stop partway, wait for the next batter to get a hit, and try to make it home from there.

The Pittsburgh Pirates (in white) are fielding. Their job is to stop the Cubs from scoring by getting them out, by various combinations of catching the ball and tagging people or bases with it.

The scoreboard (top left) shows that one Cub has already made it to second base, so he will resume running now that Javy has a hit. It also shows that two Cubs are out. If a third Cub gets out, their turn to bat will be over, it will be the Pirates’ turn to bat, and the Cubs can’t score anymore (for now, but that’s not relevant).

The Pirate at first base (the first baseman) has the ball. All he needs to do is step on first base while holding it before Javy gets there, and Javy is out. This is probably the number one most common thing a first baseman has to do.

He does not do it.

For some reason he starts chasing Javy, presumably trying to tag him with the ball directly. This is a perfectly legitimate way of getting him out, but also completely unnecessary.

This has never happened to Javy before. Unsure what else to do, he just kind of… jogs backwards away from him.

Meanwhile, the Cub who was at second base (Contreras) has made it all the way back to home. Because the Pirates’ first baseman has helpfully walked the ball back home, he can easily toss it to the Pirate at home (the catcher) who will tag Contreras out.

The catcher doesn’t tag him in time.

The umpire signals that Contreras is safe (not out).

Javy also signals that Contreras is safe, just for fun. He’s never been nearby when a teammate makes it home before, and he’s enjoying himself.

Notice that the score has not changed, even though Contreras made it home. That’s because Javy is still technically running to first base. If he gets out before he reaches it, the Cubs’ turn to bat is over, and nothing else that’s happened since he hit the ball matters.

Javy remembers this, and heads back to first base. The catcher throws the ball to another Pirates fielder, who is frantically running to do the first baseman’s job.

He doesn’t catch it.

Javy is safe at first. Contreras scores (although the scoreboard won’t change for a second).

Javy notices how far away that ball landed, and decides he can make it to second base before anyone picks it up and tags him out.

An offscreen Pirate throws the ball to second base, where another Pirate is ready and waiting to catch it, tag Javy out, and end the Cubs’ turn to bat.

He doesn’t catch it.

Javy is safe at second. The video doesn’t show it, but he will go on to score as well.

This should have been a very easy out for the Pirates, but through two dropped catches and one truly bizarre decision from the first baseman, they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and turned it into two points for the Cubs.

The largest dam removal in U.S. history. So successful that the salmon that haven’t run freely in the river for literally over a century came back the next year. Not steady progress over a decade as expected, the very next salmon run they came home. No one alive saw salmon in that river outside the hatcheries kept by native’s tribes and the Department of Fish And Wildlife scientists desperately trying to save them. One of the activists who helped bring the suit spoke of their dying grandmother making them promise to bring the fish home, and they didn’t know how that was possible, but they spent decades doing it.

The legal basis for successfully suing the power company who owned the dams was Indigenous treaty rights to eat the fish. Eating the fish was the one thing in a century that succeeded in being a clear and legally binding right that superseded the desires of white capital and industry. I have been going to the public interest environmental law conference off and on for 20 years where a lot of organizing for Undam The Klamath happened. I’ve heard updates about every legal tact they tried as they happened, and they tried everything.

There are healthy, thriving salmon, trout, and lamprey in a rewilding and recovering Klamath River right now as a direct result of Indigenous people eating them. Of their legally binding right to eat them. They sure as fuck care more about those fish than any white vegan ever could. They are salmon people that the Creator sent Salmon to feed, while charging the People with protecting and stewarding them. It’s not possible to learn about salmon and trout in the Pacific Northwest without learning this, and it’s unambiguously racist to dismiss this symbiotic relationship.

The white vegans are trying to get all hunting and fishing banned in Oregon, and that’s quite possibly the single most catastrophic thing that could be done to the animals here because we killed off all the major predators of creatures like deer and without anything hunting them their numbers will explode, eat all the vegetation, destroy the ecosystem, and then die along with everything else in that failing ecosystem. Controlled hunting of deer is vitally necessary for the deer to survive. This is something Native people know, but patronizing racist savior-complex white people refuse to listen to.

I have a whole collection of Oregon’s Public Broadcasting’s documentaries about Klamath River or the larger story of fish and people in the region. If you watch nothing else, watch Klamath Dams Are Coming Out, First Salmon Ceremony, After The Dams, and First Decent (Native made). It could not be clearer that the salmon are being protected and nourished by the people who eat them, and that stewardship is a massive part of their creation myths. But it contradicts political vegan dogma so they don’t listen.