The umpire and the TD are nuts!
Next thing you know, umpires will be invoking 9.01c to retroactively go back and change the results of a timing play from three innings earlier.
The Paul O'Neill play immediately came to mind for me, too. O'Neill is a Columbus boy, and we went to the same high school. He graduated a couple of years after I did.
One point where my memory was fuzzy was I thought that this happened while he was with the Yankees, but wasn't sure on that point.
The circumstances around the play were odd. It was the final inning and the batter dropped a liner in front of O'Neill in shallow right. The charging O'Neill, thinking that the winning run would score on this apparent hit, angrily kicked at the ball assuming that the game had been lost.
By sheer luck, the kick sent the ball directly to the first baseman who fielded it to retire the batter-runner (GOOOOAALLLL!). Since there were two outs, no run scored and the game continued.
At least that's how my aging brain remembers the play from perhaps fifteen years ago.
As to the question of what the umpire from the original post was thinking:
That he was officiating a football or basketball game?
