You may be a batter ...

Always nice to see the Sport of the Gods crack the Top 5 at the Fair 'n' Balanced network, isn't it? At least, until they start writering:

The Texas Rangers pulled off a move on Thursday that reportedly hadn’t been seen in more than a century.

The team managed a triple play without retiring a batter after Los Angeles Angels player David Fletcher smacked a ground ball toward third in the fourth inning at Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas, MLB.com reported.

Seem a little out of adjustment? As in, you have to start a triple play at "without retiring a batter," because otherwise you can't reach three outs? See if it makes more sense in the story Fox cribbed from:

It had been 106 years since a Major League team turned a triple play in which the batter was not retired before the Rangers turned the trick in Thursday's 8-6 win over the Angels at Globe Life Park.

... According to STATS, this was the first triple play in which the batter was not retired since June 3, 1912, when the Brooklyn Dodgers did it against the Reds.

Oh. The batter. The definite article, you might say. If you can wade through the hurling and snagging and random apostrophes, here's Fox's description of the play:

The bases were loaded when Rangers’ infielder Jurickson Profar snagged the incoming ball and stepped on third: out No. 1. He then tagged the Angel’s runner on third, Taylor Ward: Out No. 2. Profar then hurled the ball toward teammate Rougned Odor, who touched second base.

Out No. 3. Triple play.

Which kind of leaves out why Ward was still in the neighborhood ("Every runner thought it was a line drive, that's why we got a triple play"), but you get the idea: Cool triple play!* Just not quite the one we were led to believe.

* Not that there are humdrum ones; "exciting triple play" is in the "brutal murder" category of Needless Words.