Not necessarily
Agreed:
These types of things need to be discussed at the plate meeting, covered under "ground rules." We have trees at one field down the first base line. We play Kingdome rule...in live ball territory, live ball.
However, Dakota, since the tree is natural, if there is no rule covered at the plate meeting, if it hits the tree and ends up in fair territory prior to 1st or 3rd, it would still be considered fair. It would be the same if there were substantial spin on the ball and it hits a rock in foul territory and bounces fair. You shouldn't make the foul call until the ball has either hit something not natural (backstop, equipment, person...okay, so a person is natural, but still would be foul), or has gone past the base.
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