Magic baseball bounces off the ground, hits Mike Napoli’s ankle then knocks his helmet off

When a hitter gets his helmet knocked off by a pitch, it often results in something very bad. A fastball to the head could cause serious injury. In the case of Mike Napoli on Wednesday, his helmet got knocked off by a sequence of events that don’t even seem possible in a baseball game.

The pitch comes up short and bounces in the batter’s box before popping up and hitting Napoli in the ankle/shin. Normal enough. That’s where it gets it gets complicated. Apparently Napoli’s leg was at the perfect angle and the velocity of the ball was just right so when the ball hit, it shot up and directly into the bill of his helmet, knocking it off his head and sending it flying. So many aspects had to be exactly right and they meshed together perfectly. Science!

If this can happen during a baseball game, maybe there was some truth to the magic Seinfeld loogie afterall.

SB Nation video archives: Baseball’s unwritten rules (2013)