[greymule]

I'm not claiming any justification for calling a strike. My instinct would be to call hit by pitch unless it appeared that the batter's being out of the box caused the contact. In other words, if the batter runs up and has a foot completely over the line when he's drilled by fastball that would have hit him anyway, that's HBP. If both feet are in front of the box and he sort of runs into a change-up, well, maybe not. But what about something in between? Intentionally leaving the box, not to avoid a pitch but for another reason--maybe this is pure HTBT.

Yet now we have "legal batting position" to deal with. I'm surprised that I can't remember ever having had to deal with this.

The issue arose originally in ASA FP softball--just a question from a spectator--but nobody's quite sure of the ruling. While we're waiting for a definitive answer, I figured I'd consider the parallel with OBR. Apparently in NCAA softball, it's a dead ball, no pitch. (Hey--a do-over!)