Quote:
Originally posted by WhatWuzThatBlue
Please show me where in the RULE BOOK it allows a batter to do what the batter did in the original play. PBUC states that if he intended to do it you have an out. I have maintained that it is impossible to tell whether he intended to in this hypothetical play. He stood in the box and tossed the bat towards the home team dugout. He wasn't running towards first when he chucked it backwards.
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Well, I've stayed out of most of the recent flame wars, but this gem drew me right in.
Are you REALLY the Poster Formerly Known As Windy? Up to now, everything has seemed to point that way, but...
"Please show me where in the RULE BOOK it allows a batter to do..." The REAL PFKAWindy knows that this statement is pure ignorance. If the RULE BOOK doesn't PROHIBIT [punish] something, then it is permitted. That's the default condition. If there isn't a Rule AGAINST it, then you [the umpire] have no basis for punishing it, unless you simply make up your own rules; then it's not Baseball, it's Calvinball [or WWTBball, or ....].
Interference with a THROWN ball requires, by rule, intent. Yes, that sometimes requires "mind-reading". But I suppose that I am used to that, since my day job requires me to prove or defend what someone "intended" all the time. I suggest that umpires use one of two standards: both with good legal pedigrees- first, either the Potter Stewart
"I know it when I see it..." standard; OR the standard jury instruction that:
"You may [but are not required to] infer that a person intends the natural and probable consequences of their voluntary acts or omissions." Use both if ya' gotta.
Actually, tho': WWTB's rant which I quoted in part to begin mine, contains, perhaps, the germ of an answer to the original question. I have, so far, resisted stating how I would rule on the sitch in the OP, because the necessity of determining intent makes it a classic HTBT. HOWever, it may be, as WWTB almost, but not quite, implied above: that here we have one of those "carelessly thrown" bats that CC and I went around about some months ago. For THAT, there is a rule [and, BTW "carelessly" is a level of intent, too... requiring "mind-reading" I suppose].