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"You - home plate!" In 50 plus years I never saw or heard of that. You tell that to someone in an MSBL game, he goes home, they appeal, you call him out? I hope you have good insurance.
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Carl,
How is it different if we change the wording to "You - third base!"? You tell that to someone in an MSBL game, he goes to third, they appeal, you call him out?
Seems to me that the need for insurance isn't driven by which base is awarded, but rather by the awkwardness of seemingly directing a runner to an advance base and then calling him out. I realize that tension is increased if a putative run is taken off the board, but the principle of negating an award on appeal is the same whether the award is to third or to home. If we were really interested in reducing aggravation amongst the participants, then for an obvious left early situation, the award should be to third without possibility of appeal. I wouldn't be thunderstruck if FED adopted an interpretation similar to this in the future.
I think that the practice of the last 50 years is less optimal than the new ruling when viewed in the light of the printed rules or some hypothetical framework of self-consistent rules. But I also agree that the new ruling fixes something that isn't very broken.
Dave Reed