[greymule]

Is it possible that the case play you recall is one dated back when we used to call a runner out in FED for missing a base without waiting for a proper appeal?

That's a good surmise, since after the third out the runner couldn't correct his miss, but I don't believe so. I didn't see any Fed publication until many years later. I recollect that this was an OBR play, but I certainly didn't have any official OBR case book and was unaware even of the existence of supporting publications like J/R, PBUC, etc.

I have some recollection of its being in the Sporting News, when they used to have "Hal the Referee" of the Cleveland Plain Dealer to explain rules and pose and answer questions. It also could have been in one of those "Knotty Problems" books or something similar.

Maybe it hinges on just how obvious the miss was and whether it was clear to everybody in the park that the runner was returning to correct a miss.

PS. I do specifically remember writing to Hal the Referee about somebody's claim that, in OBR, a popup that lands a few feet short of 2B and then spins backward across the line between home and 1B into foul territory is a fair ball. Hal either knew the answer himself or asked a MLB umpire, and subsequently published the answer in the Sporting News: foul ball, because it did not go past a base.