Glitches in the Outfield
Brandon Fishback
“O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!”
We all cheered loudly for the game to begin. My family had never been to a Major League Baseball game before because it cost too much money. But it had been a crazy year for our family.
“Uncle Barry, can I get a hot dog, please!!!?”, Alex pleaded with me, as though his very life depended on it.
My son Derek obnoxiously chimed in. “You should have asked earlier when he was getting food. Now you’re going to starve!”
“Uncle, please! I don’t want to starve!”
I gently admonished Derek, “Be nice to your cousin. It’s a big day for him.” I turned to Alex. “Of course, I’ll get you one. Let me just watch the opening pitch.”
Following tradition, someone important was throwing the opening pitch. The governor would be doing us the honor today. Governors had been throwing the opening pitches for over a hundred years by this point but not like this. He stepped up to the plate. The governor wiped his right arm twice and then his left arm twice. He stepped forward and then back. Forward and back. Forward and back. He then tapped his head and launched the ball. As soon as he let go, it vanished.
Reappearing right in front of the catcher, the ball went right into his glove. The crowd went wild. The governor was sure to get a boost in popularity after that performance. The glitch was seemingly simple to pull off, but anyone who tried it knew it was anything but. You needed to pull off those moves in an extremely precise manner, or the game could crash.
All of this would have sounded preposterous just a few years ago but everything changed when the world’s biggest science experiment caused an event known as The Lab Incident. Now I’m not an expert, but I’ve done my research, and this is my understanding of what happened. Scientists had been frustrated by their inability to fully understand the underlying nature of reality. There were two major theories in physics. One was the theory of General Relativity. It governed the world we see around us. Then there was the Standard Model, which governed the world of atoms. Both were internally consistent, made useful predictions, and were based on relatively simple formulas. Unfortunately, they contradicted each other. The Holy Grail was a Theory of Everything that could reconcile them both. People had come up with various hypotheses to solve this problem, but without a scientific test, they lacked evidence. So physicists devised one.
They came up with a test called the Large Hadron Collider. It was essentially a giant tube that launched particles at ultra-high speeds, where they would hit each other and break apart. It’s purpose was to test their theories against reality, which would hopefully give them a new direction to look in. But when they tried it, it just confirmed what they already suspected and nothing more. Everything discovered already fit neatly into the Standard Model. Not knowing what else to do, they did what everyone always does: throw more money at it. It ended up working but not in a way anyone have predicted. They were searching for answers about the world but ended up breaking it.
While doing their tests, the physicists noticed an anomaly. It looked like a completely different particle from anything they had ever encountered before. A breakthrough! But despite their best efforts, they simply could not replicate the result. They tried everything they could think of for weeks, but nothing was happening. While they were experimenting, they started noticing strange phenomena. Computer programs would randomly turn on. Phones would turn off. People would momentarily see strange colors. At first, they believed they were imagining things. After all, there were plenty of late nights in the lab and they were on little sleep. But then it spread outside. People in the neighboring communities were starting to have similar experiences. The scientists couldn’t determine the cause, but it obviously had something to do with the tests, and they were ordered to stop. But it was too late. Within a few months, people all over the world were seeing the effects. While the scientists were puzzling over this problem, an even more bizarre event occurred. It was discovered in, of all places, a baseball field.
Baseball players were a superstitious bunch. Pete Bostrom was more superstitious than most. A pitcher for the Atlanta Braves, he once got dust on his outfit and wiped his right arm twice and then his left arm twice. He ended up pitching a no hitter. After that, he ended up doing the same thing before every game. A few months after the Lab Incident, he was doing his routine. Dusting off his right arm twice and then his left arm twice, he threw the ball, and then it disappeared. It reappeared a second later and dropped to the ground. Everyone was stunned. The physicists went into tailspins trying to figure out what happened but while they saw a problem, others saw an opportunity.
Players started testing out new strategies. After some experimentation, they discovered that after making the ball disappear, pitchers could make the ball reappear right in front of the catcher. Batters learned to time how long the ball disappeared before it reappeared. They discovered other moves that players could use to give them an advantage. Some affected the ball, others affected the player, and a few affected the baseball field itself. Within weeks, players discovered dozens of glitches. These glitches were bound to bring controversy. The game was changing so much that it was hard to say it was even the same sport. But the ratings were going up dramatically. Baseball had been on the decline for decades and the general public was beginning to show an interest again. It was decided that glitches would be allowed. Not only that, but any new glitch discovered would be allowed if it was not explicitly ruled out. The public was excited. America’s oldest pastime was becoming America’s favorite pastime again.
Physicists were baffled. No one could explain why it only worked while playing baseball. It didn’t work in a soccer field, or a tennis court or a golf course. It didn’t work while playing football, or basketball, or even pickleball. Glitches only worked in a baseball field while playing baseball and there were no other applications. The novelty of these experiences opened up new avenues of research. But while many experts were trying to understand the scientific, philosophical, and even theological implications of these new inexplicable rules, its effects for me were closer to home.
My little brother, Conner, had always wanted to play in Major League Baseball. His love of baseball originated as a kid. He started playing the video game Backyard Baseball when he was five years old. He put hours into that game. Dad put him in Little League, and we discovered that he had a knack for it. Going into high school, he was by far the best player on the team and was getting noticed because of it. Athletic, charismatic, confident, and boisterous, he dreamed of reaching the major leagues. In his senior year, he was recruited by a scout and then drafted the summer after he graduated. He had to start in the minor leagues, but could work his way up. Excited, he proposed to his girlfriend that very night. It had been the best day of his life. But everything seemed to go downhill from there.
Although he was a superstar in high school, Conner was merely average at the higher levels. The pitches were harder to hit, and the ones he did hit were less likely to get him to base. He could compete on that level but wasn’t good enough to make it any higher. It wasn’t for lack of trying. He dedicated all of his time to improving his skills, at great cost to his personal life. He had little time for friends and his wife spent most nights alone. Even after his son was born, Conner didn’t spend more time at home. Tired of waiting for him, she took their son and left. Heartbroken but undeterred, he kept striving for greatness but to no avail. He eventually became cynical and defensive. Some of the players called him “Chipper Jones,” a mocking reference to the All Star player, because they said he had a chip on his shoulder. After years of disillusionment, Conner put less effort into his career and found an escape in video games.
His high school friend had been getting him in to video game speedrunning. It was about beating a game as quickly as possible. Sounds simple enough but the trick was that in most games you could win much faster by exploiting glitches in the game. You could access areas that you’re not supposed to sooner, give yourself abilities that you weren’t supposed to have and do things that the developers had never imagined possible. His friend Clippy, as he was known in the speedrunning community, was what was called a glitch hunter. He would play around with the game and look for new tricks that could be incorporated in to speedruns. Conner had a knack for speedrunning. He was able to pull off these precise tricks consistently and made quick progress. He also started streaming his games on the internet to whoever wanted to watch. His skill combined with his charisma helped him gain a following. He considered switching to speedrunning full-time. That is, until he heard a news story about how a baseball disappeared and realized the game was about to change forever.
As the game was being revolutionized, the two of them immediately saw how what they were doing could be applied to baseball. Their talents transferred over smoothly. Clippy had the creativity and intelligence to discover new techniques while Conner had the athleticism and patience to test what was practical. Many glitches were difficult, but the most challenging aspect was consistency. It was one thing to do a trick repeatedly while practicing in the field. It was another to do precise movements while a baseball was flying at you. They worked together to see what kind of set-ups they could come up with to minimize those issues. It certainly wasn’t easy. Many glitches they thought were promising didn’t pan out, and the ones that did required an enormous amount of effort to get right. But their efforts were starting to pay dividends. The months passed, and Conner was making gradual improvements. He went from a declining minor league player to one of the better ones, but he still had to fight a stigma. Many players and coaches didn’t think of him as a serious athlete, but as a hack who couldn’t win without stupid tricks that he could never rely on at a higher level. But the results spoke for themselves. After hours of practice and months of progress, Conner moved up and would actually play in the Major Leagues. He finally made it.
And that brings us to his first game. Conner had not been doing as well as expected. Five innings, one hit and no runs. The doubters surely thought themselves vindicated, that being good at glitches wouldn’t be enough to establish himself. But I was confident that he could prove them wrong. His kid was too young to really understand what was happening, but I could tell he was disappointed.
“Uncle Barry, when is daddy going to get a home run?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he just wants to surprise us.”
His eyes lit up. “Really?! What kind of surprise!?”
“We’ll just have to watch and find out. He’s batting next.” Conner stepped out of the dugout and the announcer called his name.
“And here comes Chipper- I mean- Conner Jones!”
He stepped up to the plate. First the pitcher threw a fastball, where the baseball travelled at 300 miles an hour. Strike one. Then the pitcher threw a curveball, where he curved space within the field erratically to mess with the batter’s perception. Strike two. Then he threw a ghostball. A ghostball is when the pitcher creates a mirage of the ball that appears in front of the real ball. Those are tricky because it’s difficult for the batter to even know when one is being thrown. However, Conner had been practicing for this trick extensively. There was a subtle tell that indicated both that a ghostball was being thrown and how far behind the real ball was. As the pitcher threw the ball, I could see a small grin on his face. He swung his bat. The ball cracked against it and went flying towards the outfield. That was good enough for an easy first base. Conner started running towards it and…
…What was he doing?
Instead of running straight towards the base, he was doing this strange half skip, slowing him down considerably. The crowd started booing. I had no idea what he was doing until I remembered a brief conversation we had months ago. He was trying to explain the intricacies of some new glitch he and Clippy were trying out. I could barely follow along with what he was saying, and it never came up again. The whole thing slipped my mind. But this set up was reminiscent of what he was trying to tell me. It was extremely risk. I don’t know why he would try something like that now. If it went wrong…
Conner barely touched the plate before the first baseman caught the ball. In that instance, another Conner appeared out of thin air and landed on second base. Another appeared and went to third and finally the fourth Conner landed on home plate. The crowd went silent. Few people even knew about this glitch, let alone attempted it. Everyone was looking at the umpire in anticipation. After the initial shock wore off, he came out of his stupor and yelled “Safe!” The crowd went wild. The Conners let out an excited jump, and three of them simply disappeared. Conner Jones just made a home run in his first game of Major League Baseball.
The glitch was actually crazier than it looked. Everyone assumed that those were some kind of copies of him, but they weren’t. They were all Conner Jones, but from different universes. Not only did he prove the existence of the multiverse, but it was accessible to us, or at least to him. This monumental discovery would be a landmark in the history of science, and he did it for a baseball game. Before I could even consider the implications of what I saw, my nephew tugged at my shirt.
“What just happened?”
“Didn’t you see?” Derek impatiently explained. “He ran across the bases and got a home run.”
“But there were a bunch of him…”
“It doesn’t matter. He got the run.”
Alex gave me a confused look. I considered what Derek said.
“Yes, that’s right.” I assured him. “This stuff is too hard for even adults to understand. We don’t know how he did it, but he still did. What we do know is that your dad did something really cool that no one else can do. He’s going to be the biggest player in the world after this.”
Alex looked at me intensely for a few seconds and then shrugged. He thought this was a good enough answer and went on cheering with the rest of the crowd. I guess it would have to be good enough for me as well. The philosophers and scientists would have yet another question to bang their heads against. All I knew was that my brother made his first home run in the Major Leagues, and his future looked bright.