Wednesday, April 13, 2005

I posed a baseball question yesterday, wondering if anyone would venture a guess, or if someone knew the answer. It's a fairly technical situation.

There are runners on 1st, 2nd and 3rd bases and less than two outs. The catcher bobbles the ball on a called 3rd strike and the guy on 3rd heads for home. The catcher retrieves the ball and tags home plate, but not the runner.

What's the call?


Batter's out, run scores.

If 1st was unoccupied, or if there were two outs the batter could have advanced to 1st. Neither situation existed, so the batter was out. Since the batter was out, there was no force on the runner advancing to home plate so he could only be called out if the catcher tagged him.

It's calls like this that keep me awake at night hoping I never get presented with a situation like that.

Had another, less technical call that same game. See if you know this one.

Second baseman grabs the ball in his bare right hand just as the runner passes him and he reaches out and tags the runner with his glove.

Was the runner out?

4 comments:

JACK ARMY said...

I used to referee soccer and we'd go through the same mental gyrations with all kinds of hypothetical. I loved it!

Anonymous said...

Oh, not fair, I wasn't online until today because they kicked me out of my apartment to repair the staircase, so my internet access will be scarce until next week. I've been staying with my cousin, so we've been spending our nights watching baseball games and arguing (shouting) over the mighty/not so mighty Yankees. (I hate the Yanks) Ah, childhood memories :) I'll answer anyway. The run scores because the runner was stealing home, so the catcher had to tag him.

The second one, hmmm... I'm pretty sure the runner is not out. The second baseman has to tag the runner with the ball -in the glove or in his bare hand. Right?

Snakeeater said...

Correct on both counts. Want to umpire games for me?

Anonymous said...

Good. If I'd gotten them wrong my dad would go "Lord, where did I go wrong?", and then disown me :)

Sure, I'll umpire games for you. I'll have my agent forward you my resume with references and salary requirements :-)