Quote:
Originally posted by brumey1107
Situation:
Count on Batter is two strikes and less than three balls with first base unoccupied. Pitcher throws a wild pitch, uncatchable by F2. Batter takes level swing, no intention of hitting pitch, but knows he has excellent chance getting to first on dropped third strike rule.
Is the pitch called a ball and batter forced to stay at plate? If not and is called a strike then it appears we'd have two different rulings for the same action do we not?
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I usually don't get into hypotheticals like your above situation. Normally it is a pointless waste of time. I only deal with things that I have seen or heard about in real live games and I have never seen a batter that was that quick on the uptake.
What I have seen is a batter, AFTER seeing the ball get by the catcher with two strikes, take a great big swing and try to advance to first.
Once again the definition of a strike from OBR:
"From OBR
"A STRIKE is a legal pitch when so called by the umpire, which
(a) Is struck at by the batter and is missed;" ..."
IN MY JUDGEMENT, after a ball gets by a catcher, the batter did NOT swing at the pitch, he was getting exercise but he was not playing baseball. As such, he did not offer. To answer another one of the questions raised in this thread, he did not even intend to offer. He intended to subvert the rules of baseball.
Despite Bfairs cogent answer, if any of this were legal, you would see it MLB. A good rule for umpires to follow:
"If you don't see it in MLB, don't allow it in your games." I never saw a batter deliberately swing at air in MLB to forestall an intentional walk, so I won't allow it where I work. It's that simple.
If I had allowed this batter to get away with swinging at a pitch to subvert the intentional walk, the next pitch likely would have been at his head. Top level umpires are always aware of these types of things and take steps, legal and otherwise, to prevent them. Kiddie ball umpires let the s$$$ happen and wonder why the s$$$ ends up in their face.
Peter