|
You are right debau; the players do not know it is an appeal; the coaches don't know, and, honestly a lot of umpires don't know. They all use the words "force out" and assume that it is an automatic call.
BUT - by rule, leaving the base early is an appeal play, and umpires cannot make any call until appealed by a player. OK, so the players don't know it is technically an appeal, but they do know they can get an out and they are scrambling to get the ball back to the base - and the runner knows that he can be called out and he is scrambling to get back. All that highly visible activity is telling an umpire that the defense is appealing - even though they don't know it!
So what are you going to do if the ball beats the runner back? Call safe because the players are too dumb to know the right words? In the heated discussion sure to follow eventually it will come out that they did not follow the appeal process correctly. At which time they will tell you they want to appeal and you have to honor it because the ball did get back first. So we excuse their dumbness and go ahead and give them the out automatically.
However, a fielder tripping over a base missed or left early by a previous runner does not get the call. In the first play the defenders knew what they were doing, even if they didn't know what to call it. In the second case, the fielder was just clumsy and had no clue the base was missed or left early. That would be an accidental appeal and we will not honor it.
WMB
|