The Chicago Tribune baseball writer Hugh Fullerton was fond of saying:
“Once upon a time there was a baseball bug down in Cincinnati who figured out there were 11,297,424 possible plays in baseball. This, of course, was counting only straight and combination plays and taking no account of the different kinds of fly hits and grounders, which all are different. He proved it conclusively and the next day the team made one that wasn’t on the list.
“Every play, every throw, every hit is different. That is why baseball is the national game, and there are freaks in the game that make even the case hardened regular sit up and yelp with surprise and joy.”
Hugh Fullerton
Fullerton made a career of telling stories about those plays; some might have even been true.
A few more of them:
“Philadelphia lost a hard luck game to Cleveland in the old twelve club league. The score was close, Philadelphia had two men on base, and Ed Delehanty was at bat.
“He cracked a long drive across the left field fence—a sure home run. The ball was going over the fence high in the air, when suddenly it changed its course, dropped straight down, hit the top of the fence and bounded back into the lot.
Ed Delahanty
“The crowd, which had given up in despair, was astonished. The Cleveland left fielder got the ball and, by a quick throw, cut down the runner at the plate and Delehanty was held at second. The next men went out and Philadelphia was beaten.
“Investigation after the game proved that the ball had struck a telephone wire reading to a factory just outside the grounds.”
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“Tom Corcoran had one of the oddest baseball experiences in the history of the National League at the old Eastern Park grounds in Brooklyn years ago, in a game against Boston. The game was played on the morning of Labor Day, and there had been a hard rain the night before. In the early part of the game Corcoran, going after a ground ball, felt his foot slip and his ankle turn, and, half falling, he stopped the ball and then fell. He turned to pick up the ball to throw out his man, and saw no ball—although there was a hole six inches across, into which his foot had plunged. The runner, reaching first, stopped and saw Corcoran with his arm plunged to the elbow in the ground, and after hesitating a moment, he ran on down to second.
Tom Corcoran
“Corcoran, meantime, had been thinking. His fingers were clutched around the ball, and yet he waited, pretending to be groping for the ball. The runner started on, and as he passed, Corcoran dragged the ball out and touched him out.”
—
“One of the funniest plays I ever witnessed was pulled off on the old Baltimore grounds along in 1896, and it was good-natured, happy Wilbert Robinson who made the blunder that resulted in the defeat of the Orioles when they might have won the game.
Wilbert Robinson
“The struggle was between Chicago and Baltimore and it went into extra innings. In the eleventh, with a Chicagoan on second Doctor Jimmy McJames made a wild pitch, the ball shooting crooked and bounding around back of the visitors bench with Robby in close pursuit. The ball rolled back of the water cask and disappeared. Robby made one frantic grab back of the cask, and then, straightening up, hurled a sponge full of water at McJames, who was covering the plate. The Doctor grabbed it, and as the water flew all over him he tagged Jimmy Ryan…In spite of the fact that the play beat Baltimore, the crowd yelled with delight over it, and Robby, who had made the sponge throw as a joke when he found he could not get the ball in time, appeared as much pleased as if he had won the game.”
Baseball History Daily 
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