On April 28, 2012, Edwin Encarnación smacked a grand slam against Mariners pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma. Then something important happened.



According to former Blue Jays slugger José Bautista, Encarnación wasn’t sure if his line drive would clear the wall, so he chugged around first base and almost fell. This momentary loss of balance, Bautista argued, caused Encarnación to run with his arm raised at a strange 90-degree angle, which he left up as he circled the bases. “Everybody was like, ‘That looked cool. You need to do it again,’” Bautista said on MLB Network.



Encarnación’s version differs slightly. “I was so excited, I started running to the side,” he said. “My teammates saw this and asked me after, ‘Do you know how you ran the bases?’ I said I didn’t. They told me to go watch the video. I went inside the video room and watched the replay and saw my arm like...