In Search Of: The Bermuda Basepath

Florida at Washington.
Fish 4, Nationals 2.
Nationals 5, Fish 2.

We turn to Leonard Nimoy to explain the mystery of how the Washington Nationals can strand so many runners:

The is the story of mysterious runners left in scoring position. Wednesday night, individual Nationals batters stranded a total of 32 runners in eight innings. That's an average of four stranded runners per inning. Yet scientists say there are only three bases on which runners can be stranded in any one inning. How do the Nationals manage to strand more runners on base than there are bases? This question has baffled scientists.

The scientific consensus holds that the stranded runners are the result of bad coaching, but the evidence says otherwise: The Nationals lead the NL in getting on base in the last 30 days. No batters in the league are harder to get out than the Nationals, yet only five teams have scored fewer runs in that same time.

In the absence of a satisfying explanation from mainstream science, a cottage industry of amateur researches has stepped in to document convincing evidence or a terrifying, possibly paranormal phenomenon: The Bermuda Basepath.

Just 750 miles off the Atlantic coast from Washington, DC, Bermuda has long been at a nexus for unexplained phenomenon. Near Bermuda, strange weather, magnetic disturbances, and overpowering psychic energy has led to the disappearance of untold numbers of ships, aircraft, and, yes, runners.

On Tuesday night, first baseman Nick Johnson found himself at third base with the bases loaded and one out in the seventh. Only a double play, an infield popup, or a strikeout could prevent him from scoring. But somehow, Johnson never made it home. Last seen at third base, there have been no sightings of him since.

On Wednesday night, pitcher Ramon Ortiz found his way to third base with the bases loaded and one out in the sixth inning. Yet just one batter later, Ortiz had disappeared and the inning was over. The very next inning, Austin Kearns was on third with bases loaded and one out, and Kearns also never made it home. Neither Johnson, Ortiz, nor Kearns have been heard from since; all are feared lost in the Bermuda Basepath.

Officially, the Coast Guard and Major League Baseball maintain that there is no such thing as the Bermuda Basepath. They blame sloppy research and say that runners are no more likely to disappear in the Bermuda Basepath than they are between any other bases. "Look, 60-70 percent of runners never make it from home to first," says Coast Guard Vice Admiral Vivien S. Crea. "Is it then surprising that only half of all Nationals on third base advance home? No." Baseball Commissioner G. Gordon "Bud" Selig points out that runners from Miami, itself one tip of the famous Bermuda Triangle, seem to have no problem scoring from third base.

But despite these pubic denials, the federal government has been conducting research into the Bermuda Basepath for decades. In 1981, a U.S. Navy study pointed to the risk that underground methane eruptions could turn the basepath into a sandy foam incapable of supporting a runner. As a result, many ballparks built in the 1980s featured small dirt cutouts around the bases and grass basepaths. Other research points to electromagnetic distortion that could cause a runner on third to head for the dugout instead of home plate.

Independent researchers offer other hypotheses, from the missing empire of Atlanta to alien abduction.

In time, we may learn the underlying causes. But for now, we are left only with the certainty that Nationals runners who reach third base risk following in the footsteps of so many others who have never been seen alive again. They have entered ... the Bermuda Basepath.