Maybe Baby - March 11, 1963 - S2-E20
Continuity mistake: At one point when the police are chasing Sam, the car has a Sheriff's star on the driver's side door; however, when Sam drives into Clayton, no star is to be seen.
Maybe Baby - March 11, 1963 - S2-E20
Continuity mistake: When Sam is talking to Al in the store (while looking at car seats), Al checks on Margaret Dalton and holds the handset at chest level. The shot switches to Sam down on his knees and it's at his face level (about Al's waist). Then the shot switches back to Al and the handset is again chest high.
Chosen answer: Per the Quantum leap page at http://www.scifi.com/quantum/episodes/season5.html. 8 August 1953: An enigmatic leap lands Sam in a Pennsylvania tavern, as his own grown self on the day of his birth. As Al and Gushie work frantically to locate him, Sam befriends a wise bartender (popular character actor McGill, who'd appeared in a different role in the very first "leap") and a group of coal miners. As a host of familiar-looking faces pass through the bar - with different identities than Sam remembers - Sam ponders his life of leaping with Al the bartender, who tells Sam he controls his own destiny. Pressed for more, Al the bartender simply shrugs and says, "Sometimes, 'that's the way it is' is the best explanation." Sam realizes he must right at least one more wrong before he can go home, and leaps back to tell Al Calvavicci's wife Beth (from "M.I.A.") to wait for Al, who will survive Vietnam and come home to her. The closing title cards state that Beth and Al have four daughters and will shortly celebrate their 39th wedding anniversary ... and that Sam Beckett never returned home.
Boobra