I have not watched a single baseball game this year. Sometimes I'll see something weird is happening and put on a radio stream and then get bored. The part I actually like about baseball is the 0.05% of events that are just so bizarre. Here's yesterday's (ESPN):

Miami Marlins lefty Richard Bleier had himself an inning to forget Tuesday night against the Mets in New York, making major league history as the only player since 1900 to balk three times in the same at-bat, according to Elias Sports Bureau.

Nobody can actually explain what a balk is, because there are so many things a pitcher can do that can be called balks. It is roughly defined as a pitcher making an "illegal motion" that the umpire judges as "deceitful". In the context of Bleier's pitches last night, it appears he failed to stand perfectly still (become "set") for long enough before throwing the pitch; the rules of baseball require this so that you can't fake batters out.

For this to happen three times in a single at-bat from a pitcher who has never had a balk called on them in 303 major league appearances prior to this fateful encounter with an umpire is kinda nuts.

The balk rule is my favorite rule in baseball because it exists to keep games interesting (it makes stealing bases even possible, arguably), but whenever it is enforced it leaves fans confused and bickering with one another about what the hell just happened and whether it was warranted or not. Defector's David Roth seems pretty well convinced that all three called balks were in fact balks, but every single place you can find with replies or comments on the topic disagrees with whatever claim was made.

What follows is one of my favorite ever pieces of sports writing. It's by Jon Bois, of course, but it's from before a lot of his early work at SB Nation. It is, to me, a summary not just of how confusing the balk rule is, but the end result of every time a sport attempts to codify what they think is fair.

Balks are so complicated. If you sat me down and asked me to write out, to the best of my understanding, the Major League Baseball rule book, the section for "balks" would look something like this.

BALK RULES! IMPORTANT!
1. You can't just be up there and just doin' a balk like that.
1a. A balk is when you
1b. Okay well listen. A balk is when you balk the
1c. Let me start over
1c-a. The pitcher is not allowed to do a motion to the, uh, batter, that prohibits the batter from doing, you know, just trying to hit the ball. You can't do that.
1c-b. Once the pitcher is in the stretch, he can't be over here and say to the runner, like, "I'm gonna get ya! I'm gonna tag you out! You better watch your butt!" and then just be like he didn't even do that.
1c-b(1). Like, if you're about to pitch and then don't pitch, you have to still pitch. You cannot not pitch. Does that make any sense?
1c-b(2). You gotta be, throwing motion of the ball, and then, until you just throw it.
1c-b(2)-a. Okay, well, you can have the ball up here, like this, but then there's the balk you gotta think about.
1c-b(2)-b. Fairuza Balk hasn't been in any movies in forever. I hope she wasn't typecast as that racist lady in American History X.
1c-b(2)-b(i). Oh wait, she was in The Waterboy too! That would be even worse.
1c-b(2)-b(ii). "get in mah bellah" -- Adam Water, "The Waterboy." Haha, classic...
1c-b(3). Okay seriously though. A balk is when the pitcher makes a movement that, as determined by, when you do a move involving the baseball and field of
2. Do not do a balk please.