Quote:
Originally posted by ronny mulkey
Chuck,
You are one of the people that I thought might give this THEORY some serious consideration. Hope you will wade thru their logic.
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Oh, ok, ok. Just so you know, I did try to respond to your emails, but for some reason, my server encountered problems with your address or Rich's, so I couldn't write back.
The real question, if I'm reading correctly is: Can team control be established by batting the ball to a teammate, even if player control has not been established yet?
That's the question, right?
The reason the question is even remotely plausible is that part of the definition of team control includes the phrase "and while the ball is being passed among teammates" (or something very similar).
Part of the definition of pass states that a pass can be a bat.
So. . .
1. A1 is attempting to inbound the ball (no team control).
2. A1 throws the ball in to A2.
3. A2 cannot secure player control, but bats the ball to A3.
4. By definition, this bat is a pass.
5. The pass is between teammates.
6. By definition, team control exists during a pass between teammates.
7. Therefore, team control exists, even though player control was never established.
It seems completely reasonable, and yet completely false. I honestly don't know of a reference that definitively states that player control must be established before team control; I think it's just assumed that everybody realizes it.
The definitions of control simply say that a player is established when a player is holding or dribbling a live ball inbounds and that team control
exists in those other situations. I'd like it a lot better if it said that team control
continues during passing, etc. . . b/c then we could infer that it had to exist before the passing in order to continue during the passing.
But it doesn't say that. So I don't really know what to say about the argument. I think the only thing to say is that the spirit and intent of the control rules is pretty clearly that you have to have player control in order to establish team control. Unfortunately, I can't think of a rule that actually states that.