"Ohtani looped the ball off the end of his bat, the baseball dropping just inside the line then bouncing off the ground and over the wall. Ground-rule double, right? Except the ball didn't go into the stands. It hit the netting that now sits atop the wall and bounded back onto the field. That netting is new, the Associated Press reported, added to Angel Stadium this year."
"So was it out of play? Or a live ball? On the replay, you can see Angels right fielder Jo Adell, a noted home run thief, throwing his arms in the air, signaling the former. The broadcast team for ESPN thought the same, at first believing the ball had gone into the seats until it became clear that it had not."
"A good explanation for what happened came from Orel Hershiser on the Dodgers broadcast. Hershiser said he talked to replay officials in New York who explained that, because the netting was flush to wall, it was considered an extension of the wall. This meant the ball was still in play, as if the ball had hit the wall itself."
"However, if the ball had hit different netting, say behind a camera well or behind a dugout, it would have been considered out of play. Officially the play was recorded as a triple with a throwing error by Adell, hence the phrase Little League home run-because something like that is far more likely to happen in Little League."
The Dodgers led the Angels by four when Shohei Ohtani came to bat with two outs and runners on first and second. Ohtani hit a looping ball that dropped just inside the line, bounced off the ground, and reached the wall. The ball struck the new netting atop the wall and bounded back onto the field rather than going into the stands. Replay initially suggested a routine ground-rule double, but officials determined the netting was flush to the wall and treated as an extension of it. The ball was therefore live, similar to a ball hitting the wall. The play was recorded as a triple with a throwing error by Jo Adell.
Read at Defector
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