[Gulf Coast Blue]

I think that this play definitely falls into the infamous RULE 10 category........

The plate umpire shall have the authority to make decisions on any situations not specifically covered in the rules.

In this situation........if the bird was in fair territory......I would probably call it a dead ball and award all runners (and batter in this case) the base I thought they would have gotten had the ball not hit the bird.

If the ball hit the bird over foul territory.....dead ball....foul ball.

We have one ball park in our district that has a power line that travels from just beyond the 1st base dugout to Right/Center field......it is covered in the ground rules as a two base award if hit by a batted ball over fair territory and a foul ball if over foul territory.

If this happened at this park......I might just rule identically......all the coaches know this particular ground rule.

Interesting play.

Joel