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Originally Posted by jkumpire
I have a long day ahead, so I will have to brief....
1. In this case, the PU has ruled the runner out for Batter's interference at home plate, even though he is now a BR. 
2. Then the ball becomes dead because of the Interference, right?
3. The BR did not move from the batters box, right?
Since we agree on all of these things, what has the BR done on this play?
A. He/She Struck Out.
B. Caused interference because they did not try to go to 1B as is their right on this play (dropped 3rd strike).
A Dead Ball does not allow the BR to advance, does it? No.
So while Abandonment may be the wrong word to use here, since it has a technical meaning in the Baseball rules, the BR gave himself/herself up when they stayed in the box interfering with the play. If you follow J/R's logic here, then you have given the offense a huge advantage in the play, because they can interfere without penalty. Also, J/R assumes the BR will try to get on base, which this person is not doing.
How can you not call the BR out? The dead ball by definition does not allow her/him any chance to advance, and there is no reason why their rights were violated by the defense so they can be awarded 1st base.
I can't see how the batter can be anything but out on the play. |
We are saying the B-R is out. What we are saying is you have to return R3 to third base, per the rules. You keep calling him the batter. He ceased being a batter upon his third strike, which was uncaught, so he became a batter-runner. He is not out on strikes, he is only out because he interfered with the play. The proper call in this situation (if it is egregious) is to call the batter out for weak interference, and return the runner to the base he occupied at the Time Of The Pitch (not the TOI).
This way, the offense is punished by virtue of not scoring that RISP, and having one more out. After all, it was an uncaught third strike, and a passed ball. It's not like it was the offense's fault this occurred, it was the defenses mistake. To turn this around from your point of view, you could say "why are we punishing the offense for the defenses error?"
As has already been mentioned, there is no time limit for the B-R to run to first base. Let's just say for the hell of it that there was no interference. Then all the defense would have to do is tag the B-R, or throw it to first base for the put-out. He can stand at home plate as long as he wants if nobody plays on him. Eventually, a member of the defense will realize that he's not out yet.