[greymule]

When I joined this board several years ago, I raised this question and practically started World War III:

R1, no outs. BR blasts a ball to deep center, and F8 makes a diving catch near the fence. R1 returned to 1B to tag up, but we notice that he left 1B just before the catch. However, everybody in the park seems to have been watching F8, and we don't hear a peep about R1's error. R1 slides into 3B, and the throw gets through and into DBT.

It seemed to me that awarding only 3B would be tantamount to announcing to the world that R1 had left 1B too soon, so I asked whether we shouldn't award home and leave it to the defense to appeal (and to R1 to correct his error). Heated discussion followed, with some people claiming that leaving too soon is leaving too soon, that we weren't supposed to try to judge whether the error was obvious or not. In fact, though Papa C and freix and seemingly all the regulars got involved, I'm surprised that nobody cited the PBUC or the J/R. Or maybe I'm not remembering accurately.

I don't think the matter was resolved, but I came away from the board thinking that the key would be whether R1 has initiated a return. If he has, we award from TOP (3B). If he simply stands on 3B and looks at us, we award TOT (home).

So it seemed that we should make the award based on what the runner was doing. Even in the case of an obvious error, if R1 did not initiate a return, we would still award home. If the error was indeed obvious, the defense would appeal. If they missed the error, too bad for them. We didn't get into what happens if we award home and then R1 returns to correct his error.

Personally, I like the MLBUM ruling. It covers all cases, regardless of what R1 does or what the defense is doing. It does not require that we determine whether R1 has initiated a return, only whether he actually touches 1B. I wouldn't have any problem awarding home and then changing the award to 3B.