Finnish baseball player flies headfirst into river while chasing ball

No, this isn’t faked — as much as you might want to believe it is. This clip comes to us from the “Superpesis,” the championship series of “Pesäpallo,” which is a Scandanavian variant of baseball. Playing in perhaps the worst conceived sporting arena ever, the Saarikenttä or “island stadium” is surrounded on four sides by a river, and can only be accessed by crossing a bridge.

This leads to a lot of unique moments, as one can imagine. Unlike baseball there’s no equivalent of a ground rule double in Pesäpallo, which means a ball hit into the river (which occurs fairly often) is still live. With players needing to wade through actual flowing water to get the ball and throw it back on the field it’s generally accepted that a river shot results in a home run. That doesn’t stop players throwing themselves into the water to get the ball, as this montage of iconic river shots from 2015 shows.

The Jomboy breakdown is hilarious (NSFW, language).

Finnish Baseball Player shoots the river for a home run, a breakdown pic.twitter.com/7kmJElB1SD

— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) June 28, 2019