[greymule]

Long ago, I saw a batter called out for stepping on the plate on his way to 1B after hitting a line drive up the middle.

The manager came out and calmly asked the PU to explain his call, then asked if he would check with the BU. The BU straightened things out, and they left the runner on 1B, which he had never left, apparently in his confidence that such a preposterous call wouldn't stand up.

Then the opposing manager got thrown out for arguing the reversal.

That same ump later called a batter out for being out of the box and hitting the ball. The lines were rubbed out, and the batter's foot was, in the words of this PU, "in front of the plate." But the PU showed the manager the footprint, and it was clearly well in the box—it was simply in front of the line where the plate ends in fair territory. In other words, PU made a call more ridiculous than his earlier "stepped on the plate" call.

They wouldn't reverse this one, and the PU ejected the batter for arguing.