Los Angeles Angels outfielder Jo Adell had a night he'd rather forget on Tuesday. In the fourth inning of an 8-2 loss to the Colorado Rockies, rookie first baseman TJ Rumfield hit a drive to deep right center where Adell was patrolling. The ball cleared the wall only because it bounced off Adell's head.
According to Statcast, Rumfield's drive would have been a home run in exactly one of the 30 ballparks in Major League Baseball. That park was Angel Stadium. And it was a home run only because of the geometry of Adell's skull.
The record does not need much decoration; it already does the talking.
The play invited inevitable comparison to a similar moment from May 1993, when Jose Canseco of the Texas Rangers took a Carlos Martinez home run off his own head against Cleveland. Canseco's incident came in a one-run loss. Adell's occurred in a game the Angels were already trailing 7-0.
There is a small irony in the physics. A glove is soft and pliable and barely changes a ball's path. A skull, however, includes 22 bones and the hard surfaces of the frontal and parietal regions. Those hard surfaces added enough energy to push the ball over the fence. Adell actually got his glove on the ball first, which distinguishes this from Canseco's case, where no glove was involved.
Canseco's incident was followed three days later by an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery, effectively ending his pitching career. Adell, a better outfielder than Canseco ever was, likely won't face similar consequences. But for one night, the outfield wall at Angel Stadium had an unusual assist.
A rare double in a lopsided loss
The Angels were already down 7-0 when Rumfield connected. The loss dropped them further from contention in the American League standings, though the specific standing position is not mentioned in the source. What matters is that Adell, who earlier this season robbed three potential home runs in a single game, now has a first: a home run allowed because his head was in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong height.
One Last Read On The Result
The strange part is the story here. Baseball can spend a century organizing its rules, then one bounce off a glove, a head, or a wall makes everybody check the box score twice.