ST. LOUIS -- Clint Hurdle's seen a bunch of baseball over his lifetime, but he'd "never" seen a player voluntarily help an umpire overturn a call that would've helped his team ... until Marte did it in the fourth inning Wednesday.
A Jack Flaherty fastball struck the knob of his bat and caromed downward. Bruce Dreckman, the home plate umpire, promptly pointed to first base, meaning he'd judged Marte to have been hit by the pitch.
Which he was:
That's when it got weird.