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"NFHS: The defensive mistake (the overthrow into DBT) stranded the runner, giving the defense an out they could not earn with basic thrown & catch.
ASA: The defense blew their chance for an appeal by poor play. Runner returns and retouches.
Which seems more balanced to you?"
NFHS. Whether the defense made a good or bad play has nothing to do with the intent of the rule.
The rules for DBT are designed to compensate for a less than perfect ball park. In the perfect field the ball is always in play unless it is hit over the fence. In a less than perfect field there are all sorts of ways a thrown ball can go out of play, so rules are written to move runners to where they reasonably would have ended on their own had the ball stayed in play.
My guess is that NFHS feels that if a runner is one base or more past the base they must return to - at the time the ball was declared dead - not when it was thrown, that had the ball stayed in play there would have been plenty of time for the defense to field the ball and throw to the base for the out. (Remember that the runner has to retrace his path which takes a little extra time.)
Dakota - can you justify the ASA position? A runner past 2B, the ball thrown past 1B. At the instant the ball hits the fence in front of the dugout, will the runner go back to second and get back to 1B before the catcher or pitcher retrieves the ball off the fence and throws to 1B? I doubt it.
Sure you can imagine it happening, but you are trying to write a rule for umpires to automatically apply to every game, every skill and age level.
You can see the logic in DBT rules for other situations. On a passed ball to the backstop, will runners typically advance more than one base? No? So if the ball is blocked, the umpire awards ONE base by rule. If F6 fields ground ball and throws it over F3's head, will the B-R advance to 3B? Maybe sometimes. May not even get to 2B if F2 or F9 are aggressively on the ball. But if the ball goes out of play, we will assume, by rule that they would have made it to 2B.
WMB
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