Hi All, been awhile since I've been here. I'm still umpiring and coaching. I was going over some baserunning skills with my players. I was unsure about a rule interpretation, so I thought I'd ask the experts. Oddly enough, when I came to the forum - alas, an article on the main page from a few months back.
http://softball.officiating.com/x/article/5186
The article discusses a runner at 3rd. Pitcher walks BR. She rounds first and walks towards 2nd without hesitation. The pitcher begins to walk towards the back of the circle without making a throw or fake throw so to not release the runner at 3rd.
The article was unclear, but interesting as to whether walking towards the BR allows her to reverse direction and head back to first. However, this is not the point of my question.
The situation I have is similar to the article as follows:
R1 at 3rd. BR is walked. F2 returns ball to F1 while she is in circle. R1 immediately returns to 3rd and is now pinned to the bag as F1 has ball in circle. BR rounds 1st and briskly walks towards 2nd. F1 makes a fake throw towards the BR. The fake throw now releases R1 from the bag and she begins down the line towards home. F1 is holding ball in glove at this point and not making an attempt on either runner. She is watching R1 head home. However, when BR, after taking 5 running steps towards home, realizes F1 did not make the throw towards the BR, she reverses direction and heads back to 3rd. Hence, the question: Is R1 out for hesitation??
F1 has been trained to wait for her to get down closer to home before the pitch home to tag R1. However, this training msut be changed if R1 is not out for hesitation.
Thanks for any input!!
Steve