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Originally Posted by rwest
No, it's not. The white and orange are treated as separate bags until the runner has reached the base. Then it is one big bag. That is even how they worded it in the rules clinic/camp I attended last year.
Correct, they can RETURN to either the orange or white once they've reached first base. Once they reach first base it is treated as one big base. But they didn't return. They stayed on the portion of the base that the were not allowed to touch.
The wrong base and the white portion are one and the same. They have not corrected anything. They have not done anything but continue to violate the rule. They went to the wrong part of the base and did nothing to correct it. By your interpretation the following has occurred:
1. The runner is allowed to violate the rule and not make any attempt to correct their mistake. As in your missing base analogy, the base they missed is the orange. They've not returned to the missed base.
2. You don't allow the defense a chance to appeal.
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I repeated the same arguments to our association umps. They, to a man,could not refute the reasoning you and I have used to uphold an appeal. They also,to a man,said they would never call the runner out.
This kind of reasoning, in legal circles, is called jury nullification of a law.
It is also the likely result of trying to contruct a rule to prevent injury while winking at common sense.
Fortunately the situation most likely to cause a controversy is rare, since most batter runners do not stop at the bag and, even more rarely, slide into first base.
But this exercise is useful in understanding why the letter of the rule is sometimes ignored while casting no umpire in a bad light for doing so.