[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally Posted by bob jenkins

The mechanic on this play is often described as "The umpire signals safe ...". I think this is wrong. The mechanic should be, "The umpire does whatever he would do if the runner had touched the bag." Now, it's consistent with the runner going to 2B, etc -- we're not tipping off either side, nor calling something that doesn't need to be called.

In practice, the play at first is "close enough" that we'd normally give a "relaxed" safe signal -- so that's what we should do when the runner misses the bag.

I think BigUmp56 already gave the professional interpretation, which is the same one I use in all of my games. Why do you disagree with the authoritative opinion and accepted mechanic?