Presley did well to get in position to make the play on the warning track, but once he got there with time to spare, it was a fairly routine one. A somewhat bewildered Presley admitted as much afterward.

If the official scorer's decision is switched to a four-base error as it should be, then reliever Daniel McCutchen and second baseman Omar Infante will be affected most. McCutchen threw the pitch and Infante hit it, and their statistics will change accordingly.

“Tradition can be a vision-killer,” manager Clint Hurdle said when I asked about the sequence this afternoon. “There may be a day when that call needs to be an error, so it's not a home run. If that ball is not over the fence, that's an error in the outfield, absolutely. If that ball doesn't bounce over the fence, it's a flat-out error.”

But who ever heard of a four-base error? Actually, there is precedent for such a thing. In fact, I was at old Comiskey Park in Chicago when it happened.

On Aug. 1, 1982, Boston Red Sox catcher Gary Allenson hit a routine fly ball to White Sox center fielder Ron LeFlore, who was known to have defensive lapses at times. (The game was his first after a two-week suspension.) The ball appeared to strike him smack dab on his head, then it took a crazy bounce away from him. While the dazed LeFlore gathered his wits, the ball rolled and rolled and rolled some more. Meanwhile, Allenson circled the bases.

“See, you guys don't even know what happened,” LeFlore pleaded his case to reporters afterward. “(The ball) didn't bounce off my head. It bounced off the bill of my cap. I drifted back when I should have run. When I stuck my glove up, I lost it in the sun.”

Now for the rest of the story: Among the hundreds of possibilities, the White Sox did not have a four-base error in its computer program at the time, so certain were they that it would never happen.

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The Florida Marlins batting order: Emilio Bonifacio, shortstop; Bryan Peterson, center field; Omar Infante, second base; Gaby Sanchez, first base; John Buck, catcher; Donnie Murphy, shortstop; Matt Dominguez, third base; Vinny Rottino, right field; Anibal Sanchez, pitcher.

The Pirates batting order: Presley, left field; Chase d'Arnaud, shortstop; Andrew McCutchen, center field; Derrek Lee, first base; Neil Walker, second base; Ryan Ludwick, right field; Pedro Alvarez, third base; Michael McKenry, catcher; Jeff Locke, pitcher.