Quote:
Originally posted by David Emerling
Quote:
Originally posted by Steve M
David,
For ASA, that is correct. ASA has a POE - I think it's 24 or 25 - which sez a couple of things:
1 - For a ball to be intentionally dropped, there must be a catch first.
2 - Merely guiding the ball to the ground is not an intentionally dropped ball.
That they used the word "merely" always struck me as ASA's being pretty emphatic about this.
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This seems ludicrous.
The spirit of the "intentionally dropped ball" rule has always been the prevention of a cheap-o double play by the defense. By not catching a catchable ball, the fielder forces runners to advance, and forces them out.
This is particularly true with regards to a line drive.
Baseball has a similar rule [6.05(l)], but it is not interpreted in the bizarre manner that is described here.
In baseball, a dropped ball is one that is dropped ... and not CAUGHT. It seems you're saying that, in softball, for the purposes of this rule, a dropped ball is one that is CAUGHT ... then dropped. This defeats the whole purpose of the rule, which should be to prevent the fielders from FORCING the runners into a situation where they HAVE to run, thus laying the groundwork for a cheap-o double play.
If a fielder is allowed to CATCH the ball, then the batter is OUT! If he subsequently drops the ball, I don't see the purpose of killing the play since the runners are no longer obliged to run. Why invoke this rule once the fielder has made a legitimate catch just because he should allow it to fall out of his glove afterwards? It makes no sense.
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I have no problem with the rule or the sense of it.
You kill the ball to keep the circus off the field. If a fielder wants to take the chance that by knocking the ball to the ground, they'll get a double play, more power to him. The odds are about 50/50 that it will work because you find very few true bounces on most softball fields I've been on.
The defender isn't the one which put the ball in play, the batter did that. If you don't want to put your runners in jeopardy, don't hit it at a defender. Duh!
Why should the defense be deprived of making additional outs? This usually only happens when they notice the BR NOT proceeding to 1B.
This isn't baseball, and unless any of us were in the room when this rule was developed, we don't know what the "spirit" of any rule is. We may get an interpretation, but that is about it.