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Originally Posted by bob jenkins
Relevant only if someone is officiating an "old-timers game" under the original rules.
Since most of us are officiating modern games under modern rules, I'll stick with the modern interpretation.
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Bob, the "modern interpretation" and that from 100 years ago is the same.
The point I tried, unsuccessfully, it appears, to make is that while one can certainly make a case that the wording found in the rule books may be used to justify the existence of what may pass for some as a "tie", that condition, according to the experts who have spent years researching, and a career intepreting the rules, was not a consideration of the rulesmakers, despite their chosen wording. There was no original intent to cover what we know as a "tie."
A "tie" in baseball is a
relatively new concept introduced not by the rulesmakers or rules committees or even professionals entrusted with interpreting the rules, but by outsiders who choose to put that meaning to the words in the rule book.
The original consideration was simple, did the ball beat the runner? Yes? He's out. Did the runner beat the ball? Yes. He's safe. That's it. There was no thought of, "well, by the dictionary defintion of each word chosen, that leave open the possibility of a tie, therefore....."
If consideration for a tie was intended, it would have been specifically addressed, not left to the imagination of second guessers.