ST. PETERSBURG — Victor Mesa Jr. had to trust the roof, trust the rulebook and keep his eyes up longer than any outfielder ought to on a routine-looking popup. In the second inning of Monday’s ALDS Game 2, the Rays right fielder finally squeezed Spencer Jones’ towering fly in shallow right-center after it struck the B-ring catwalk at Tropicana Field.
For the television audience, the baseball appeared to hang beneath the Trop’s roof forever. Four Tampa Bay fielders gathered beneath it, waited out the strange bounce and stayed composed as the ball dropped back into play. Mesa made the catch, recording an out that briefly turned the ballpark’s overhead structure into the game’s main character.
A Tropicana Field play by the book
- Jones lifted a high pop fly toward shallow right-center in the second inning.
- The ball hit the B-ring, one of the upper catwalks above the playing field.
- Rather than becoming a dead ball or an automatic home run, the ball fell back into playable territory.
- Mesa settled under it amid the cluster of Rays defenders and completed the catch.
- Yankees manager Aaron Boone came out to discuss the ruling, but the play stood under Tropicana Field’s ground rules.
The Trop has four overhead catwalks: the A-, B-, C- and D-rings, with D positioned lowest. A fair ball contacting either of the lower rings, C or D, is ruled a home run. Contact with the upper A or B rings leaves the ball live if it returns to the field. If a fair ball remains lodged on either upper ring, it is a ground-rule double; a foul ball hitting any catwalk is dead.
That made Mesa’s catch less of a circus play than a test of concentration. The Rays knew the ball was still theirs to play, even while everyone else waited to find out where it would land.
Roofs have shaped this Division Series round
The Tampa Bay oddity arrived only two days after another indoor ballpark roof played a major role in a Division Series opener.
On Saturday night, Milwaukee beat San Diego in Game 1 after Ty France sent a towering ninth-inning drive toward left field at American Family Field. The ball seemed headed toward the wall before striking the closed roof and dropping into the glove of Brewers left fielder Jackson Chourio for the inning’s second out.
Two different parks, two very different roof configurations, and the same October lesson: when the ball gets high enough indoors, outfielders have to keep playing until it comes down.
The Rays and Yankees are set to continue the ALDS with Game 3 on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET, airing on TBS, truTV, UniMás and HBO Max.
