YORK, Pa. -- Jimmy Paredes didn't mean to steal first base. It just kind of happened.
It was Friday, July 12. The first day of the second half of the Atlantic League season. During the all-star break, a batch of wacky new rules had been introduced. The craziest one of all? Stealing first base.
With one out and a runner on first in the bottom of the third inning, and with his Somerset Patriots trailing 1-0 to the New Britain Bees, Paredes found himself in a 1-2 hole. He swung and missed on the next pitch, a breaking ball that bounced in the dirt and squirted away from the catcher, toward the first-base dugout.