Confusing ending sends Washington to LLWS, a breakdown

Oregon versus Washington. Winner goes to the Little League World Series representing the Northwest Region. Oregon is three outs away from doing that but the first batter of the inning takes the 0-2 pitch and sends it right off the kid's glove. Such restraint there by that little kid in center field. See how bad he wants to hit the fence? Stops himself. Upset. Hey, he got there. He got all the way there. Jumped a little. Missed it. What are you gonna do? But he's mad at himself. Now the game is tied. Washington has done it. The kid, once he saw it was a home run, he actually sped up his trot. He was jogging and then he sprinted home. Jumps. That threw me for such a loop. Usually when someone jumps on the plate like this, they're gonna come down full force, both feet on the plate. Power jump. Home run. He just does the left foot. The right foot spreads at the end and that kind of like took a little wind out of my sail. I was excited and then you remember they're Little Leaguers and he's celebrating, celebrating. He's like, I gotta go get my bat, guys. Get off me. I gotta get my bat. We don't have bat boys here. I'll get it myself. And then now it's the coach's turn. Double high-five. Hug. That kid's as tall as his coach. That kid's taller than me. That kid's tall. That's a tall kid. Got a natural pop at this age. Bottom of the seventh. Full count. In play. Off the pitcher's glove. So Washington held Oregon scoreless in the top of the seventh. Now they're up and they have a runner on first. Bottom of the seventh inning. 1-0 is the count. The next pitch. Hit down the line and this is where things get confusing because the ump puts his hands up like it's foul, but the first base coach is waving everybody on as if it was a fair ball. And in play, the kid's running home and then nobody knows what's going on. You have the third base coach celebrating. You have the kids like, what? It's foul. The umpires are just kind of standing around. What happened? Now, I want to remind everybody, just like these kids are not even amateurs. They're kids playing baseball. Some won't even play in high school. They're not even like, you know, high-A prospects like some of these kids like baseball is just kind of like a hobby in the summer and their team happens to be good. The umpires are volunteers. They're just out there volunteering, umpiring for free to keep things in order. Coach says, can you review that? He says, challenge what? You're challenging it's a fair ball? He says, yes, it's a fair ball. So the umps are gonna go challenge it. Now, this is really tricky and announcers were fully aware of how tricky this is because they ruled this a fair ball. That's what they said. They said that in live time, this was ruled a fair ball. So I think what happened was, watch the third base coach. As soon as he sees it bounce behind the bag, which doesn't matter. It's where it crosses the bag. It doesn't matter where that bounce, this bounce afterwards, where the ball lands right there. It does not matter. So as soon as the coach sees that, watch the third base coach. He turns. So he never sees this ump put his hands up to say foul. He is turning and looking at the home plate ump who must have said fair ball. And that ump, maybe he didn't yell foul, but he yelled fair because he, the coach, was under the impression that was a fair ball by what he immediately turned and saw. Now, these umps are talking to whoever does the replay. I don't know if they're in New York. They're in Williamsport. They're in Williamsport, obviously. They hit, I don't know, because watch where it hits. It hits his bat, right? And then it hits like in foul territory off the bat or right on the chalk. It's right down there in the bottom of your screen. And so for this to be fair, I'm not a physicist, but it doesn't make sense that it would be fair because it hit on the chalk or foul. Then it hit foul here. That definitely hits in foul territory there. Now, that doesn't matter because it matters where it crosses the bag. But it would have to really start in fair territory for it to cross the bag. Otherwise, you're kind of going against physics because it's like a curveball, like hitting on the line, then going fair, and then wrapping around. I have no idea if that could happen. But the tricky part is this ump says foul. He raises his hands. The coach, he never looks at him. He looks at the home plate ump who must have signaled fair. Because again, they did say that it was ruled a fair ball, so they would have to overturn it. The other thing you'd have to think of, and let's go back to the start of the play, is would the left fielder, see that's way down the line, did the left fielder stop running after the ball because he thought it was ruled foul? And even if he didn't stop, would he have been able to run there, catch it, and throw home if it was a fair ball? I don't think so. Anyway, I was watching this live. Everyone that was was like, well, that's a foul ball. But if it was called fair, there's no angle to overturn it because you don't have an angle down the line when it's over the bag there. You just kind of have like my junk science, non-physics thought process of it. It probably isn't going to curve around from the two places it hit. So the umpires get off the phone and they let everybody know, Fair ball! Run scores! I do like how confident he was because that's the one thing when you umpire. I umped when I was like 14 years old. You got to say things with confidence. But then he makes this face at the end like, hmm, I guess so. And that ends it. And that's that's pretty tough. That's pretty tough for the team from Oregon. Pretty exciting for the team from Washington. They're hugging each other. They're kind of looking around like, really? Really? Coach, deep breath. These guys are celebrating. Coach is going to give them a little speech. Chins in the air. Washington on three. One, two, three, Washington! Chins in the air. Washington on three. I think the coach is the only one to say it. Chins in the air. Washington on three. One, two, three, Washington! Tough. Tough time to be cheering. I'm pretty distraught. So I think it was only the coach that said Washington. Again, the umpires are volunteers. They're going to make a lot of mistakes like this. Just a tough ending for the kids.