Tue Apr 27, 2004, 11:12pm
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Official Forum Member
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Join Date: Sep 2003
Posts: 179
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Quote:
Originally posted by Rich Fronheiser
Quote:
Originally posted by bigwes68
Had one of these happen in a Babe Ruth (OBR) district tournament last year. I wasn't umpiring the game, but I was the official scorer and ended up umpiring the championship game between the same two teams later in the week.
Tie game, R3, 2 out, bottom 7th. Defensive coach calls time, goes to the mound, calls in the infield. Pitcher gives the ball to the third baseman, everyone returns to their positions. F1 then straddles the rubber without the ball and with the ball still dead. F5 tags R3, game is apparently headed to extra innings. Umpires confer and award R3 home on a balk. After the game when the umpires got back upstairs, I contended that there should have been no balk called because 1) the ball was not live, 2) for the ball to become live the pitcher had to step on the rubber WITH the ball, and 3) there cannot be a balk on a dead ball. They disagreed.
What do y'all think?
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You are right. The ball cannot become live until the pitcher takes the mound WITH THE BALL. And there can't be a balk with a dead ball. Wipe the egg off your face and put the ball back in play.
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I guess they wouldn't listen to me because I was "some 19-year-old kid that didn't know what he was talking about" and they were "seasoned vets." Now that I think about it, I was on the protest committee for that game. If the coach had protested the call, we would have probably overturned it.
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